


gold star, ash sky

by bigspoonnoya



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Historical, Coming of Age, Dragon Riders, Dragons, Feudal Japan, Hurt/Comfort, I love dragons, Learning to Fly, M/M, Major Character Injury, Slow Build, all the goods really, almost a httyd au but it's really in its own universe, also a side pairing, deep spiritual connections, iwaoi is here now too, nature magic and soulmates, sword fights, the daisugs and asanoya are side pairings fyi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-18
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-04-05 00:41:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 138,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4159077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigspoonnoya/pseuds/bigspoonnoya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hinata Shouyou dreams of becoming a samurai, but there's a problem: he can't kill a dragon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. a shot and a miss

**Author's Note:**

> this is the product of my long-standing desire to write a big sweeping fantasy au, and my intense love for how to train your dragon/dragons. as you probably know if you've seen that movie, the dragons are as much characters as any of the people, and that's true of this story too - but it also focuses on hinata _and_ kageyama in a way the movie didn't do, for reasons that should become obvious as you read!
> 
> the first arc centers on karasuno, and then the world will open up more and we'll meet other characters - everyone exists in this universe. the fic is rated M because i don't want to feel limited in much detail i use, re: gore/sex, but ~~nothing is bad enough to warrant that "graphic depictions of violence" tag.~~ eh, i added one just in case. (a small warning if you're emetophobic, but it's not explicit, just hinata's canon weak stomach.) 
> 
> i am _really_ excited about this fic and i thank you for reading!!

“We’ve got a big one!”

The alarm bell echoes through the village paths—in Hinata Shouyou’s experience, that bell means one thing and one thing only: _dragons_.

“Niichan, no!”

“Natsu!” he whines, but his sister latches on to his leg.

“In the middle of the day, too, this one’s _bold_ ,” roars someone in the path outside their little thatch-roofed house, followed by the sound of a human scream and then another, terrible noise, a wail that rips through the air—the cry of an angry dragon. A tremor wracks Hinata’s body.

He starts trying to pry away Natsu’s arms. “Nacchan, I need to go _help_ —”

“Sawamura-san says you’re not allowed, Niichan! Please!”

That reminder just riles Hinata even more, and he manages to drag himself to the threshold, where he can at least see out into the street. People are fleeing into their houses, some cowering in their doorways. Natsu crawls up so she can cling to Hinata’s waist instead of his leg, burying her face in his obi. Judging from the distance and direction of the dragon’s cries, the main fight is happening right around the center of the Ukai farm, and he grips the doorframe tightly. He ought to be there. He ought to be fighting, too.

“Get inside.”

He jerks at the command, not expecting to hear a voice so near him, or to turn and confront the dark-eyed, steely figure of Kageyama Tobio, towering above him. Forget dragons: _this_ is fear.

“Kageyama-san,” he squeaks, “Do you need any—”

“I said get inside. You and your sister.” Natsu whimpers.

“I—I have a crossbow—”

“Shut up!”

“What is it—is it a Kuma-wani? A Mizuchi? A _Byakko_ —”

In a single fluid motion Kageyama draws his katana—the only real one on Karasuno, a beautiful curved blade. There’s a rumor it can split hairs, though Hinata doesn’t understand why that would be useful.

“Inside,” he repeats with finality, and then continues stomping down the village path in the direction of the farm. Hinata exhales for the first time in a full minute. It’s infuriating to know they’re both eighteen, and Kageyama carries a real katana while Hinata isn’t even allowed within twenty meters of a battle. He glares until Kageyama’s back finally disappears around a corner.

“I’m going to go!” He tries to get loose from Natsu so he can grab his crossbow and run—but her grip around his torso is tighter than ever.

“No, Niichan! Please don’t leave me alone!”

Hinata stops struggling; he looks down at Natsu’s small round face, so similar to his own, her cheeks wet. He hadn’t realized she was crying.

“Don’t worry. I won’t leave you alone.” He gives her his best smile, and she hesitantly returns it, sniffling.

Natsu lets go long enough for him to grab the crossbow. “Just in case,” he blusters, when she fixes him with a glare. They sit together huddled in the corner furthest from the door, and Natsu takes out her pebbles for playing games, though Hinata’s focus is at an all-time low. The walls muffle the cries of the ongoing battle, but he can still make out the yells and the dragon’s screeches. He stares at the sunshine streaming through the entryway, doing his best not to shake with longing, and Natsu watches.

“Niichan, dragons are very dangerous.”

He glances over and she is frowning down at her pebbles. When Natsu frowns she looks especially like their mother, but he doesn’t like to see her frown, so it stirs up some strange divided feelings in him. “I know that,” he mumbles.

“I don’t understand why you can’t just let Sawamura-san and Kageyama-san and their friends fight. I don’t know what I would do if you got hurt,” says Natsu miserably.

Hinata swallows and hugs his crossbow to his chest. He doesn’t know how to explain this to his sister, who's only eleven—if he did, he would have done it a long time ago. She is all he has.

So he ruffles her hair, earning himself a pout. “I just want to help, that’s all. I’m of age now.”

“But they don’t even want you, because you’re so small a dragon could eat you in one bite!” It’s Hinata’s turn to pout.

But before he can rebut, another scream pierces the air, this one so close it might be ten feet above their roof. And it’s a different sound too, higher, tinny—Hinata’s back goes rigid. Another dragon. A _different_ dragon.

He shoots up from the floor. “Natsu, there’s a second dragon and they have no idea, I have to—”

“No, you said you wouldn’t leave me by myself!”

“I’m—” _Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit._ He grabs Natsu’s hand and starts dragging her toward the door. “I’m not going to, okay! We’re going to run.” He slings his crossbow over his back and feels Natsu wrap both hands around his wrist. They peek their heads outside together, looking up: the sky seems clear. “Okay, Natsu,” he mutters, crouching to meet her eye. “On the count of three, we’re going to run to Kiyoko-san’s store. Don’t let go of my hand, and try not to be loud because we don’t want it to hear us.” Her eyes have grown wide with fear, but she sticks her chin forward and nods. Brave kid. Hinata nods back, then straightens up, and counts down under his breath: “One… two… _three_!”

They burst from the house with their feet flying. It’s a minute walk to Kiyoko’s, but they should be able to make it in half that time if they’re quick, and they are. The streets are deserted, baskets and pots lying around from abandoned daily chores, a dog cowering under an overhang. It would be eerie if not for the immediate danger. They skitter around the town well, Hinata pulling Natsu as fast as her shorter legs will allow.

Just as they duck into the doorway of the shop, a winged shadow streaks across the path and another high-pitched squawk sounds above them. Natsu scrambles inside, while Hinata stands in the door catching his breath and watching the shadow zip away. Whatever the second dragon is, it’s not big—no wonder it’s cries don’t sound as deep as what they’re dealing with over in the field.

“Hinata-kun.”

He wheels around to greet Kiyoko, coming out of the back room. He can see Yachi’s large eyes peeking out from the darkness. The walls of the shop are lined with all kinds of assorted goods, some small weapons, toys, sweets and dry goods, pickled fruits, candlesticks and fancy porcelain things.

A huge _thump_ shakes the ground beneath their feet, and the porcelain clinks. Something huge just hit the earth. All four of them turn in the direction of Ukai’s farm.

“Oh dear,” says Yachi quietly.

“Kiyoko-san, Hitoka-san, I need—”

“We will watch Nacchan while you go alert Sawamura to the second creature,” says Kiyoko simply. He blushes at her perfect perception: not only had she noticed the other dragon, she’d read _him_ too. “As long as you can promise me that’s your intention.”

“Y-yes!” His intention—what could she—and he sees her give the crossbow in his hand a pointed look. _Oh_ , she thought he meant to go after the second dragon _by himself_ , like a _lunatic_ —

But it did look smaller, didn’t it?

“Of course that’s my intention,” he confirms more loudly, now refusing to look Kiyoko in the eye. He thinks she might suspect something, but Natsu runs up to her, and the girl’s red-rimmed eyes distract her. Hinata’s brain fires rapidly.

“There, there, Nacchan. Does your brother help you brush your hair?”

“No…”

He only has two bolts in his crossbow. That won’t be enough to take a dragon, regardless of size, so he needs something else.

“Hm, I can tell. Do you want me to brush it for you?” Natsu nods as Kiyoko carefully wipes away a few of her errant tears. “And then Hitoka-chan can braid it nicely.”

“I can!” Yachi can’t keep a tremble out of her voice.

He scans the interior of Kiyoko’s shop: there has to be something in here he can use to make this work. None of the little knives are going to do much, but what about—

“Hinata-kun, shouldn’t you be going?” Kiyoko is squinting at him.

“Yes, I’m going, I just—can I borrow these?” He grabs what he needs from a basket tucked under the front counter—two small cloth bags full of stones, each tied to a length of twine.

“My weights?”

He quickly ties them together, so he can hang them over his shoulders and keep his hands free. “I’ll bring them back!”

“Hinata-kun,” Kiyoko warns, but he’s already backing out of the store.

“Be safe, Niichan!”

“I will! I’ll be back for you soon!”

And he steps out into the empty street.

At first he just creeps along, crossbow at the ready, waiting to glimpse a shadow or hear the shrill scream. The noises from the main fight seem to be dying down. The large dragon must be nearing its end, which doesn’t give him much time to take down the little guy if he’s going to do it alone.

And he’s _going_ to do it alone.

Forget being _permitted_ to fight alongside the village’s warriors; what better way to prove himself to them than taking down a dragon, solo?

Even if the prospect is sweat-inducing, pulse-quickening, knee-knocking kinds of scary. He reminds himself to breathe steadily as he moves in careful silence through the village, eyes flickering every which way, begging to see something move and dreading it all the same.

The dog that had been hiding before _barks_ and he almost flinches out of his own skin. A voice in his head (sounding like Kageyama) screams, _get inside!_ And he stares at the nearest open doorway for a second. Whoever is in there would be inviting and sympathetic, probably, and Sawamura and the other fighters are almost done with the one dragon, so what’s a smaller model to them? Nothing. It could take them ten minutes, and Hinata could live vicariously through them when Nishinoya tells the story over a group meal.

He asks himself, like he always does, _Is that what a samurai would do?_

No. Never.

Hinata draws himself up to his full height, sticks two fingers in his mouth, and whistles.

A second goes by. Then another.

The shadow appears at the far end of the path, flying straight for him, faster than ever. So it worked, even if he isn’t totally prepared to deal with the consequences. He looks up, shielding his eyes from the sun’s glare, but it’s still too impossibly bright to make out whatever is zipping toward him, its shadow growing as it drops lower…

He dives around the side of the house he nearly chose to hide in, the overhang shielding him from the dragon’s view, and peeks his head around the corner—the dragon shrieks in anger and doubles back, probably searching for him. From here he can get a better look at the shape of the circling shadow: short-bodied, which is uncommon for dragons around here, but with a long tail. The shadow is strong and well-defined, maybe more than it should be. He can even see the whiskers trailing from the beast’s jaw. It’s a pity he couldn’t make out anything more about it when he looked up, but the sun seemed to shine right _from_ the dragon itself, like—

Hinata’s knees give out and he slides, pathetically, to sit on the ground.

The Nichitatsu. Small, fast, with razor sharp claws and a white-hot flame, it’s known for tricking hunters by creating an easily-tracked shadow, and then manipulating sunlight to cloak its actual presence—you end up following the shadow but get blinded and become easy prey once you attempt to attack. No one knows how to kill a Nichitatsu, because no one has ever done it before, though plenty of people have died trying.

 _Sorry, Natsu_ , is his next, quiet, sad thought. And then he kicks himself. That is _not_ what a samurai would think.

No one has ever killed a Nichitatsu— _until today_. Hinata has to use the side of the house to pull himself up, but he does it. _I’m going to kill a Nichitatsu_.

Sweat beading on his temples, he hastily unties the two weights he ‘borrowed’ (Kiyoko-san is going to kill him and Tanaka-san is going to kill him for making Kiyoko-san want to kill him), and then knots each one onto the end of his two bolts. He slots the new weighted load into the crossbow, a relic left over from his father’s days fighting in the mainland wars. It’s no katana, but it’s reliable. If he can hit a wing, which seems more likely than hitting the narrow body, the arrow will probably pierce and the weight will get tangled, making an even flight impossible and grounding the dragon. Or, he hopes that’s what will happen.

The dragon has stopped squawking but continues to circle, so it’s probably figured out where he’s hiding and is waiting him out. Stupid smart dragon. He winces, holding the bow to his chest. The Nichitatsu hides in the glare of the sun, and it’s good that he knows that and all, but he still doesn’t have a way to set himself apart from the people who have _died_ doing what he’s about to attempt.

So if you’re not supposed to look at the shadow, where do you look? Not at the dragon, because you’ll be blinded, obviously. So what do you do, where do you _look_?

And it occurs to him—all those afternoons when they wouldn’t let him train with the other boys his age, taking the crossbow out to shoot at scraps of wood for target practice, and the games he’d invent when he got bored. Can you hit the target one-handed? Can you hit the target over your shoulder? Can you hit the target blindfolded? “I know how to do it,” he whispers. His knuckles go white gripping the bow. “I know how to kill the Nichitatsu.”

Steeling himself in preparation, he leans around the corner to check the shadow again. Still circling, and even lower. Perfect, that just makes his target bigger.

He needs to draw it closer so he can pop out and surprise the thing; he grabs the nearest sizable stone, about the size of his fist, and tests its weight in his hand. Good. It’s time. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he adjusts his position so he’s ready to move, and tightens his obi.

Then, wincing, he throws the rock out into the center of the path.

The dragon turns so fast he _hears_ its wings whistle when they slice the air; out the corner of his eye he can see the shadow speeding toward him, lower and lower. He’ll have to stay close to the ground and he needs a half-second to get himself into the path so he can shoot upwards which means he needs to move— _now!_

Hinata somersaults, lands hard on his back, and screws his eyes shut just as the unbearable glare skirts his vision—it still burns but it’s better than being disoriented by temporary blindness—and he fires up, slightly off-center, straight into the harsh beam of sunlight.

He hears three noises at once: the dragon’s pained screech, the tear of its wing as the arrow punctures, and the choking noise he makes as the backlash of the crossbow sends its wooden frame right into his chest. He’s going to have a bruise.

In defiance of his expectations, the dragon doesn’t crumple to the ground but flies higher, struggling against the weight stuck through its wing. Its screams are so loud and violent he has to clamp his hands over his ears, but because it’s distracted by the injury it must forget to cloak itself, so lying in the path Hinata can see the outline of its true form. He realizes he never knew what _color_ the Nichitatsu is until now—maybe no one has ever known—but he spies its scales glinting gold, yellow, and red as it writhes in the air and starts flapping away from the village.

Hinata scrambles to his feet and starts leaping up and down. “No, _no_ , don’t—you’re not supposed to fly away—I beat you! I’m supposed to kill you!” Disappointingly but not surprisingly, the dragon doesn’t respond to his pleas. He watches it escaping over the nearby forest, and then surging upward for the hills, until the weight must tear a bigger wound and the Nichitatsu lets out a scream that brings Hinata to his knees when it echoes through the valley.

By the time he’s recovered, he looks up and finds the horizon empty, and he lets out a scream of his own.

He glances down at himself: covered in dirt, bruised. He just became the first person ever to injure a Nichitatsu, but he’s got nothing to show for it. This can’t end here.

“Hinata-kun?” comes a soft voice he recognizes right away. “Are you all right?”

“Suga-san!” He’d been too busy with the dragon to even notice what part of town he’d wandered into, but sure enough, there’s Suga coming out of the apothecary. “Did you see that—a Nichitatsu!”

“A Nichitatsu?” says Suga, glancing up. His brow furrows at the name. “Was that what made that terrible sound?”

“I shot it!” He lifts his crossbow as evidence, but Suga stares at him, the furrow deepening.

“No one’s ever shot a Nichitatsu, Hinata-kun. You can’t even see them.” _He doesn’t believe me,_ Hinata realizes with horror. Suga knows more about dragons than anyone in Karasuno—he uses the parts for all kinds of potions and things in his shop, so he learned the lore while he was learning his craft. He’s an authority. _If Suga doesn’t believe me, no one will_.

“But I did, I was like—” He tries to demonstrate the badass somersault and blind shot. “ _Gwaa, gyuu!_ You know!” Suga keeps staring at him. At most, he looks slightly concerned for Hinata’s mental health.

“All right, well, from the noise it made, I don’t think that Nichitatsu is coming back here any time soon. Come on.” He puts a hand on Hinata’s shoulder, guiding him along. “I think it’s safe for us to go see what Daichi’s group caught.” Hinata had nearly forgotten about the other fight, but the noises had stopped at some point, and he does feel curious (if deflated) as they make for Ukai’s farm together. Somewhere on the island of Karasuno—in the thick forest, or the hills that line the northern coast—there’s a wounded Nichitatsu with one of Kiyoko’s weights lodged in its wing and _he_ was the one to incapacitate it, and no one is even going to believe him! Pfft! Pshaw! He’s ready to kick something.

The sight when they reach the farm, however, is distracting. Suga gasps, and a single, strangled “SO COOL!” escapes Hinata before he charges down toward the 30-foot-long, very dead Watatsumi lying on its side in the field.

Watatsumis are _big_ , and this is still the biggest dragon Hinata has ever seen. No wonder it shook the whole village when they took it down. Like all Watatsumis it has sharp azure scales and a shaggy white mane around its neck, though both of these show wounds and tears from battle. Its two sets of wings, one above the shoulders and one above the haunches, have been bound with weighted ropes. Thanks to Suga’s teaching, he knows if he opened up the dragon’s mouth he would find two rows of jagged teeth. The giant, utterly still corpse has sunk a foot into the mud, and a gaping wound in the middle of its forehead—a kill shot—has started attracting flies. It _is_ cool, Hinata thinks, but it would be cooler if it weren’t dead.

“Hey Shouyou!”

The greeting comes from right above his head: he looks up to find a familiar face grinning at him from atop the dragon.

“Nishinoya-san!”

“I see you’re admiring this lovely lady here.” Noya slaps the meaty shoulder beneath him. His dark hair sits pulled up and tied at the top of his head, a few strands loose in the front. “Ain’t she a beauty?”

“Stop saying it’s a lady, Noya-san!” Tanaka-san emerges from around the other end of the dragon, his signature polesword in hand, struggling through the mucky fieldwater. Dirt streaks his mostly-bald head.

“She is a lady! I'm sure of it.” Noya leaps to his feet, which just reminds Hinata that he’s actually the taller of the two of them. Life really isn’t fair.

“She _was_ a lady,” Suga confirms, having finally caught up. “You can tell by the striations around her throat, and the shape of her horns.” He comes over to examine the dragon’s head while Noya cackles victorious and Tanaka mopes, eyeing the dead creature apologetically.

“I knew it! I could tell by her gentle touch.” Still atop the dragon, Noya lifts his arm to show a gash in the sleeve of his haori, from the looks of it soaked in blood—a little whimper escapes Hinata, and much to his dismay, Tanaka catches it and gives him a solid clap on the back.

“It’s a good thing you don’t have to deal with the gory stuff, huh, Hinata?”

Hinata knows he’s red, and that it’s not doing him any favors. “No—it’s not—I’m fine with blood, I really am!” Blood. Even saying the word makes his stomach churn.

“Nishinoya.” Suga glares up at the tiny, wounded fighter. “Get down so I can check that cut. It looks bad.”

“No! I like it up here! Finally taller than all of you.”

Suga turns away and starts calling, “Asahi! Asahi, come get Nishinoya down, I know you got him up there in the first place.”

“Asahi-san, don’t betray me!”

“Oh, uhh…” A nervous voice makes its way around from the far side of the dragon, and Azumane appears, blushing harder than a guy that size should. He has his smith’s hammer strapped to his back—he makes weapons for everyone else but never fights with anything other than that hammer. He once told Hinata he believes it’s lucky. “Noya-san doesn’t really listen to me.” He winces at the sour expression on Suga’s face. “But—maybe Daichi—”

“Where _is_ Daichi?” asks Suga, craning to get a better look around the dragon.

“He went to—”

“Tell Ukai the bad news about his field,” Daichi calls from the narrow path to the house, and he jumps down to wade toward them. “Guess how happy he was to hear there’s a massive dragon crushing a chunk of his harvest, and we’ve got no way of moving it.”

“Not very happy, I’d imagine,” says Suga mildly. “Did you hear the second one?” Daichi pauses and scans the group. Most days he works in Ukai’s stable, managing the plough horses, but more and more often he serves as the captain of Karasuno’s unofficial anti-dragon militia. He always has a serious, leader-y air about him, like he’s carrying every villager’s burdens on his broad shoulders.

“Is that what that scream was?” he asks, as though he’d been thinking about it. Suga nods.

“Another one?” mutters Tanaka.

“A Nichitatsu, apparently.” Everyone tenses together. “I heard it and Hinata saw it. Or, saw its shadow.” They look at him and stir. Noya pulls his long knife from his obi.

“All right, where is this fucking Nichi?”

“I shot it!” Hinata shouts, and now everyone is _really_ looking at him. “With my bow, I shot it and it’s wounded and it’s over in the southwestern hills so if we could maybe get a few people we could go over and—”

“Hinata,” Daichi scolds sharply. “Enough.”

“But I _did_ —”

“I know you want to fight, but this is serious.”

“I’m serious too,” he cries, stepping forward, but then he catches the disapproval on Suga’s face. He glances back at Daichi, so severe, and then at the other men. Hinata thinks he might sink a couple more inches into the watery field, or maybe a few feet, until he disappears completely. Even Noya-san looks disappointed with him.

Maybe because Hinata seems sufficiently shamed, Daichi softens his voice when he speaks again. “Hinata-kun, why don’t you go sit with the other boys? We’ll let you know what we decide to do about the Nichitatsu.”

He takes a deep breath and then another, his face hot, then nods shortly and starts trudging toward the edge of the field. They start talking in low voices as soon as he’s out of earshot, and his fists ball at his sides. It would be so easy to prove—just a search party in the forest for a few hours, a dragon can’t hide—unless a dragon _can_ hide and he hasn’t heard about that particular ability. The Nichitatsu _does_ know how to cloak itself in sunlight… could that happen if it were flightless? Assuming it _is_ flightless. Which it probably is. Most likely. Ninety-percent chance. Eighty? Okay, seventy percent chance.

The water comes up almost to his knees, which has always made it hard for him to work out here, like how most of the village earns their dinner. Instead, he and Natsu get money and goods running errands or doing other odd jobs around town. At least it’s temporary, until Hinata becomes a samurai.

“I thought you weren’t allowed within twenty meters of a dragon.” Hinata’s lip curls at the sound and, after a minute of searching, sight of Tsukishima Kei sitting on the lip of the field. “Or were they thinking of feeding you to it as a light snack?” Next to him is Yamaguchi, the carpenter’s son, restringing the tall blond boy’s massive longbow—he’s the only person tall enough to carry a bow so large and subsequently so powerful.

“It’s not like you got within twenty meters of it either,” Hinata spits, sloshing toward them. Tsukishima doesn’t look like he broke a sweat—unlike Kageyama, who rests away from the other boys, cleaning his katana. Judging by his sopping wet clothing, the Watatsumi threw him around a bit, but he’s also wiping blood from the blade: he might have delivered that kill shot to the head. Hinata’s stomach shifts threateningly, until he turns away from the sight of the blood.

“Archers don’t usually enter melee,” says Yamaguchi happily. He always sounds like Tsukishima’s cheerful little shadow, in the worst way. Hinata flushes and attempts sarcasm.

“Thank you for teaching me basic war tactics.”

“Well, someone has to,” Tsukishima offers with a smirk, and Yamaguchi giggles. When Hinata’s a samurai, he’s going to fight these two first.

“You know.” He turns to watch the older guys consulting over the size of the dragon. “It’s not even fair that I don’t get to fight. Nishinoya-san is _smaller_ than me, and he—”

“Nishinoya—” Hinata’s attention snaps to Kageyama, speaking after listening this whole time in silence, like a weirdo. “—is the only person in this village who trained in combat on the mainland. He’s the single most experienced person we have, and he’s got Azumane to launch him in the air.” Hinata has seen that move a couple of times, and it’s truly spectacular: Azumane essentially throws Noya on to a low-flying dragon, and Noya disables its wings with his weighted ropes so the animal is grounded. And it wouldn’t work if Noya were an inch taller or a stone heavier, which rules out Hinata.

“So what? I could do that,” he lies anyway. “And I could be trained.”

“No, you couldn’t. You have no potential.” _No potential_.

“He’s right. What a feat, we should light a candle,” says Tsukishima. Yamaguchi giggles again.

“I took down a Nichitatsu.”

Kageyama’s hand pauses over his blade. He hasn’t looked up once since he started coolly tearing into Hinata, but he does now. He truly has a terrifying air about him: apathy cloaked with disdain. Like he doesn’t give a shit about Hinata, but if he did give a shit, it would be disgusted with the shorter boy’s existence.

Tsukishima snorts. “That’s impossible.”

“I did it.” Hinata stomps and it splashes the water around his legs. “While it took six of you to kill a dragon, I took down one just by myself. And it was a Nichitatsu, too!”

“Don’t lie about that,” mutters Yamaguchi, for once looking a little frightened.

“I’m not _lying_!” Hinata stomps again, and water flies at Tsukishima, making him flinch. He gets up and Yamaguchi follows suit, both of them glaring down at Hinata.

“You _are_ lying. I bet Sawamura thought so too.”

“He didn’t,” Hinata fibs, for the second time during this conversation. Tsukishima doesn’t even seem amused anymore, in that asshole way of his—just annoyed.

“Never tell a lie someone can disprove. Idiot.” And then he stalks off with Yamaguchi on his heels, still carrying the cumbersome longbow.

“You’re making a fool of yourself.”

Kageyama. Their eyes meet, and something in Kageyama’s countenance has grown angrier. Hinata can feel the disdain rolling off him in waves, now. _You’re making a fool of yourself_ , he said, as though it were a personal affront to him. Because there can only be one great young warrior on Karasuno. _I am a threat to you_ , Hinata thinks, feeling his own aura start to intensify too. _And if you don’t know it, you soon will_.

He wishes he could say something cool, but he’s had quite the day and all that comes out is, “Shut up!”

“Don’t waste everyone’s time with this Nichitatsu stuff. You seem desperate.”

“I don’t care how I seem. It’s the truth.”

“You seem terrified of me.” Kageyama lifts his sword, now shiny-clean, so it glitters in the sunlight.

“I’m not,” says Hinata flatly. Kageyama tosses him a glare.

“You are. Stop lying.”

Hinata swallows hard, Kageyama almost pointing the katana straight at him. “Even if I was scared of you, or of anything, it wouldn’t matter, because it wouldn’t stop me from fighting you or—it, or whatever came in my way.”

“That’s a dumbass attitude to have,” Kageyama scoffs.

“So maybe I _am_ a dumbass,” Hinata shouts at him, with enough volume that Suga-san’s head turns. Kageyama angry-laughs and Hinata realizes in passing embarrassment that he’s just admitted to being a dumbass, but he presses on: “At least I’m a dumbass with heart, which is more than I could say for _you_ , you big dumb dragon-fighting _rock_ —”

“What did you say?” Kageyama seethes, edging toward him, just as Suga shouts to them from the center of the field.

“Hinata-kun, Kageyama-kun! Please come over here, we’d like some help trying to roll the Watatsumi out of here.”

They exchange a panicked glance, kids caught fighting in front of a parent, and make their way over to Suga in silence.

* * *

Several hours later, the dragon removal squad breaks, having successfully transferred the creature to the far corner of the field. In the process they’d only succeeded in crushing more rice plants, but now that the land is clear (Daichi assures them, with what might be more of a façade than actual confidence) they should be able to replant since it’s early in the cycle, so Ukai won’t be too furious. Hinata spies him share a look with Suga that screams, _or so I hope_. 

It’s late into the afternoon by the time Hinata finds himself heading back toward Kiyoko-san’s. His arms ache from the dragon, and his chest aches from the crossbow, and his back aches from the somersault; tomorrow will be even worse pain-wise, he’s sure. 

And that doesn’t even begin to cover the emotional scrapes and bruises. 

He lost a dragon. He disabled the most elusive dragon known to his people, and then _he lost it_. Except, does it count as losing if you know where something is, but you can’t get anyone to go recover it with you? _Stupid_ , he thinks, glimpsing the forest line past the last row of village homes. He could spend twenty minutes trekking through the woods to the hills, and find the damn thing himself—

And he should just go find it himself.

He sends his second _sorry, Natsu_ of the day up into the atmosphere, and turns on his heel, heading for the forest path. 

Most of the road through the woods is wide enough to accommodate a cart, since at a fork you can either turn left for the beach and Karasuno’s small harbor, or head right, uphill. The right fork narrows predictably, with no need for commercial routes, and Hinata (who hasn’t been this way in some time) finds it overgrown and difficult to navigate—sometimes he even loses the trail, only to pick it up again in fifty feet. Anyway, he doesn’t need a trail to know where he’s headed. 

After fifteen minutes of walking, and another ten of crawl-climbing after the incline gets steeper, he breaks past the tree line. He recognizes the dip and curve of the rocky hills from earlier, when he watched the dragon struggle against the horizon; it can’t have fallen far from here. 

A narrow, difficult path winds through the rocks, and he hops along with his eyes peeled. The big reptiles don’t have nests on Karasuno, but fly in from nearby uninhabited islands, so any sign of a dragon up here could be a clue.

He pauses to examine three parallel white gashes in a rock face: claw marks. His heart rate picks up. It has to be close.

A pained squeal streaks the air, and his head snaps up—he jogs up the path far enough to peek around a big outcrop, and finds himself looking down into a deep crevasse, where lies the injured Nichitatsu.

The animal is clearly in too much pain to bother camouflaging itself, and it is the most beautiful dragon Hinata has ever laid eyes on. He was right about the color—its scales are gold tinged with red and yellow, almost translucent, like flattened gemstones—and it’s smallish, for a dragon, with half its length in a whip-like tail. The head is shorter and wider than on the bigger ones, more like a tiger’s than a horse’s, but still sort of flat and angular, aerodynamic. One of its massive wings sits partly extended at its side, with a gaping, ragged hole torn in the webbing. His bolt and the weight, tangled there, are covered in blood.

This is the final blood-soaked straw of the day. Hinata turns around and empties his lunch in a spot off the path.

At least his vacated stomach won’t have anything left to throw up when he gets closer, to deliver the final blow. The agenda is simple: kill the dragon, fight as a warrior, become a samurai. One thing leads to another. He leans on a rock wall, coughing and gagging on nothing, then struggles back to where he can see the dragon.

Who is staring right up at him. Apparently the sound of vomiting carries in these hills. 

Hinata cringes in anticipation of snarls and snaps and anger, the fear of an animal in pain, but the Nichitatsu only looks at him and exhales, a little smoke curling out its nostrils. Its huge eyes are marbled brown and orange, pupils half-dilated. He isn’t sure how he can read the expression of a _dragon_ , but this utter calmness, head bowed, signals dignity in defeat. Wounded and cornered in a small canyon, it must sense what he’s come to do. _You win_ , it says. It won’t fight back.

Sliding his crossbow off his back, Hinata starts the descent into the crevasse. Those big glassy eyes don’t leave him, but the dragon makes no move to escape. _This is really it_ , he thinks. _I’m going to kill a Nichitatsu. I’m going to become a samurai._ His hands shake as he raises the bow and creeps toward the dragon—ten feet paces, then five. Only one bolt left so this shot will have to count. He remembers the deep wound at the center of the Watatsumi’s forehead, and locates the same spot on the Nichitatsu. Right above the eyes that watch him so calmly, ancient but alive; the eyes that slide closed slowly as the dragon lowers its head in submission.

Hinata can barely hold the bow steady for the shaking of his hands. The low sun catches the scales along the ridge of the creature’s spine and they start to glow, magnificently, like tiny suns themselves. That must be how it camouflages itself, he realizes, with a surge of misplaced excitement—its scales refract sunlight, it rides around with hundreds of tiny mirrors all over its body! Amazing. 

_Nichitatsu… the Sun Dragon._

Amazing. 

Slowly, the tremors fade in his hands. The dragon lies still: peaceful, waiting, incredible.

He drops his bow and dives for the wing, untying the weight from the bolt stuck there.

The next thing he registers is being smacked in the chest (ow, again) by a—tail, or maybe a wing, and thrown into the rock wall. The dragon’s surprised screams tear at his ears as it wails from the pain of the agitated wound—Hinata feels the warm wetness on his hands and shoves down a gag reflex—but as the animal reels it discovers the new sensation in its wing and screams turn to roars of victory: the Nichitatsu is _free_. 

Cowering against the crevasse wall, Hinata watches the dragon brace for flight, and then stop, its head careening until it settles its massive, livid eyes on him. _I’m going to die. It’s going to kill me._ All it would take is one swipe of that deadly paw, and he’d be lying in strips over the floor of this ravine. He opens his mouth to scream, and just as the cry squeezes out of his lungs the dragon _roars in his face_. He screams harder, waiting to feel himself ripped open, the final few precious seconds before death. 

But the Nichitatsu lurches away from him, and he opens his eyes (not remembering when he shut them) in time to watch the creature flap into the air, crash against some rocks, and try again until it skims over the hills and disappears.

Hinata slides down the wall slowly, sitting with a _thump_ in the dirt. His second bolt and Kiyoko’s other weight lie in the center of the ditch, shaken loose after he’d untied them, the rope soaked red. He lifts his hands, sees their palms smeared with blood, and leans over to heave out whatever is left of the day’s stomach contents. 

 _I couldn’t do it_.

He suddenly understands what Kageyama meant by _no potential_ : it doesn’t matter that you can hit a target blind and one-handed, it doesn’t matter how fast you can run or how high you can jump, or even how much heart you have. 

Samurais kill. They are warriors; the best of the best. They don’t get that way by showing mercy. They kill people, and they most certainly, definitely kill dragons. 

_I couldn’t do it. I’m never going to be a samurai._

And now he’s crying, like a little baby, like Natsu. He wipes the tears on his sleeve. 

 _Weak_.

On the way back to the village, he stops and washes his hands and face in a stream, then does his best to get the blood off of Kiyoko’s weight. There will be no explaining that one to her; he would rather have everyone think he lied about shooting the Nichitatsu than let them know he’s a coward.

Thinking of the Nichitatsu, he’ll have to come back and check its wing is healing right, or else it might get stuck on Karasuno and end up terrorizing the village. Hinata feels plenty terrorized for one lifetime. 

By the time he makes it back to Kiyoko’s, the sun is setting and Natsu stands in the door, glaring at him. Her bright red hair curls to her shoulder in a thick braid. “You _said_ you’d be back for me _soon_.”

“Things got—out of hand.” He squeezes by her into the shop, where Kiyoko and Yachi are sitting by lamplight; Kiyoko cleans silver while Yachi writes in a record book. Out of everyone on Karasuno only she and Suga-san can write, though Kiyoko learned to read a little working in the shop, and Ukai recognizes the symbols for “rice” and “sake.”

“Hinata-kun.” Kiyoko doesn’t sound sympathetic to his lateness. Her eyes fall to his hands. “Are those my weights?”

“Yep! I brought them back good-as-new!” He drops them on to the counter, which rattles. 

“Why is this one soaking wet and… stained?”

“I got mud on it,” he coughs.

After searching him for a moment, Kiyoko sets aside the weights and pulls a small basket from behind the counter. “Here are a dozen savory buns. They should get you through the rest of the week if you don’t overeat.” Hinata’s stomach growls on cue—hopefully he can manage not to throw up Kiyoko’s excellent cooking. “And,” she adds, pinning him with a very severe look, as Kiyoko's looks go. “There’s also a brush in there. You need to make sure Natsu takes care of her hair or we’ll have to cut it off.” He glances at his sister, who smirks as if to say _I told you so._

When Kiyoko hands him the basket and he peeks inside, it occurs to him what’s inside probably costs a farmhand’s weekly wages and then some. “Kiyoko-san, I can’t—”

She turns away from him. “Do a few errands for me and we’re even.”

“Oh—uh, thank you for your… generosity.” Kiyoko nods and Yachi gives him a smile. He and Natsu are a charity case. Thinking back to an hour ago, that sounds about right. If he’d become a samurai, the Hinata name could’ve had some dignity attached to it, for once, but that dream is dead as long as the Nichitatsu is alive. His sister gives his sleeve a tug and leads them out of the shop.

* * *

“Good evening!”

Suga’s pestle flies out of his hand, and he has to scramble to keep it from falling off the table and shattering. “Daichi. You scared me.”

“Sorry about that.” Sawamura stands just outside the apothecary door, his tan skin even darker in the path’s lamplight. He’s cleaned up since the battle that afternoon, but there are cuts on his cheek that won’t wash away like dirt and sweat. “May I come in?”

“Of course.” Sawamura takes the two steps up into the front room, where Suga keeps his shop. He’s lucky to have inherited one of the nicest properties in town, though it’s often too much space for one person. 

“You’re working late,” Daichi observes, eyeing the ingredients scattered over the work table. Suga shrugs and pushes them aside.

“A lot of new materials came in today with that Watatsumi. I have things to do.” He slides a cushion toward Daichi, gesturing for him to sit, and gets up to go put a kettle on in the back room. “I have a treat for you. I made a tea from some jasmine I’ve been growing out back… I haven’t actually tried it, but I have my hopes. Would you like to try some?” He puts some water on to boil, and waits for a reply that doesn’t come. Smiling in confusion, Suga pokes his head back into the front. “Daichi?”

The man hasn’t moved—in fact, he looks as though he might be _afraid_ to move. “Well. Uh. When a superior offers me tea, can I really say no?”

Suga folds his arms over his chest, now grinning. “I’m not your superior.” Daichi must be kidding.

But his head tilts to the side. “Of course you’re my superior, Sugawara-san. Your family is the most respected in Karasuno, after the Ukais. You’ve been healing and teaching farmboys like me for generations.” And he smiles. He has a charming smile. For a farmboy.

“I suppose you’re right, technically,” Suga mutters, adjusting his sleeve busily. “But I don’t know why everything has to be so rigid.” But maybe being toward the top of the ladder enables him to spout such ideas while Daichi sits in silence. From the bashful, serious look that comes over Sawamura, this could well be the case. Trying not to pout, Suga goes to make the tea, and returns with the drinks in two small porcelain cups; Daichi holds his like it might break if he breathes wrong, and Suga sits opposite him at the table. “For the duration of this conversation, I’d like you to consider us equals.”

“I can do that. I think.” They make to sip their tea—Suga first, then Daichi quickly imitating him. Suga wrinkles his nose.

“That’s not very good,” he declares, setting his cup down.

“Ah. I didn’t know if it was supposed to taste like that.”

The realization dawns on Suga too slowly: “You’ve never had tea before.” Daichi smiles apologetically and Suga waves it off. “Okay, okay. Point proven. We have things to discuss.”

Daichi sets his tea down and pushes it away. “Nishinoya did say you wanted to talk to me.”

Yes, his messenger, that stupid-haired bastard. “Don’t let him jump around and reopen that cut. It took me an hour to stitch it closed because he wouldn’t stop making noise. I couldn’t tell if he was crying or laughing.”

“Probably a little of both,” Daichi says through a chuckle.

“Hmph. Well.” Suga absently wipes ground dragon tooth from his table. “There are a few things. First off, I wanted to know if you’d noticed anything strange about the attack today.”

Daichi stares at him for a long moment. The flame from the oil lamps distorts the light on his face. “Maybe?”

“Like that the Watatsumi attacked on the opposite side of town from our food stores?”

“Right. I thought it might be that.” Granted, they had taken to moving the wares—dried fish, the rice harvest, fruits and vegetables—so that the dragons would stop returning to the same place for a meal, but the storehouse is always in the village, not near the farm where the Watatsumi hit.

“I’m almost positive the Watatsumi was meant to serve as a distraction while the Nichitatsu scouted the village looking for the new storehouse.” Daichi’s expression hardens; he has the right idea. This is bad.

“So…”

“I’ve never heard of dragons doing two-pronged attacks before,” Suga admits. _And I’ve never wanted to, either_. Dragons are bad enough when they don’t work together. “It means they’re strategizing across breeds. It means they’re getting desperate.”

“I don’t get it,” Daichi grunts, shifting his seat in agitation. “They’re already fishing so much we barely catch anything, and now they’re coming after what we _do_ have.” Karasuno has always had dragon problems, but the frequency has increased tenfold in the past decade.

“I don’t get it either. And I won’t say I’m not worried about it,” Suga mutters. It’s nice to finally be sharing his concerns with someone, and particularly someone as capable as Daichi. “There’s nothing we can do except stay alert. Keep your eyes open for anything that might indicate what they’re up to.”

Daichi nods, and starts to get up. “I can do that.” 

Suga rises quickly. “Wait. There’s something else.” Daichi frowns at his tone. “Let me walk you back to the farm.”

Suga begs a minute’s patience, and Daichi waits by the door while he shifts through his stores for a balm and tucks it into a pocket. They step out together, passing the spot where Suga had watched Hinata lying in the dirt earlier. The weather is lovely on this spring evening, lamps and torches on the exteriors of the houses lighting their way. The maze-like streets stand mostly empty, but they pass the occasional group of old men playing board games, and kids chasing a stray dog. Suga walks with his hands clasped behind his back.

“Today,” he says quietly, “I’m certain heard that Nichitatsu get injured. That was a scream of pain.”

Daichi glancing at him, brow furrowed. “You don’t think Hinata was lying.”

“I… if he hit the beast, it was a fluke. He may have. I think the injury is bad enough we don’t have to worry about it coming back here.”

Suga catches the corner of Daichi’s mouth turning up. “You got all that from a scream?”

“I’ve heard a lot of dragon screams in my day,” Suga says flatly. The smile slides from Daichi’s face.

“Supposing Hinata did hit the thing. I don’t see what it changes.”

Suga takes a deep breath and bites his lip before he says, “I think you should let Hinata fight.”

Daichi stops short. They’ve reached the outskirts of the village, where a road leads through the rice fields to the Ukai farmhouse and its outbuildings, one of which Daichi calls home. “Sugawara-san,” he says quietly. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Listen, whether or not he successfully took down a Nichitatsu, he still felt the need to go out there shoot at one, _by himself_.” Suga shudders to think what could’ve happened if the dragon hadn’t been hurt. “If he insists on fighting, I would rather him do it surrounded by six exceptionally capable warriors.”

For a second, Daichi just glares at him, his face mostly shadow. Until he simply says, “No,” and starts marching away.

“ _Excuse me_ , Sawamura-san!” Suga gasps, affronted, chasing him toward the farm.

“You said I should treat you like an equal for this conversation. As an equal I’m saying no.”

Suga almost trips trying to keep up with Daichi’s brisk strides. “Is it his size? Maybe you could have Noya give him pointers on self-defense when you’re—”

“He’s too small, too young—”

“Kageyama and Tsukishima are the _same age_!”

“Tsukishima fights at a distance, and you know as well as I do that Kageyama will be a samurai in five years or less.” Suga huffs.

“That boy is going to get himself killed.”

Daichi swings around so fast Suga nearly barrels right into him. “I’m not letting another Hinata get murdered by one of these things.”

The road out here in the fields is dark, but the moon shines on the watery rice fields, giving enough light for Suga to see the grave line of Sawamura’s mouth.

“I don’t want,” he continues, voice growing soft, “to see Kiyoko raising another orphaned girl. I don’t want another empty house. No more orphans, no more…” Losing steam, he turns toward the moon and runs a hand through his hair.

“I’m tired of it too.” Suga is too accustomed to empty houses, or just charred husks where they once stood. All this rebuilding over and over again, it ages a person. He wants to reach out and touch Daichi’s shoulder, express his solidarity, but something about that feels… wrong. “But I think by keeping Hinata from fighting is only going to guarantee what you’re trying to prevent.” Daichi bows his head and sighs. “At least let him train with you and work off a little of his excess energy. It’s the safest option.”

Daichi lifts his chin to glance at Suga, but doesn’t speak. So Suga pulls the balm he’d grabbed earlier from his pocket, and nearly takes Daichi’s hand to slip it in his palm—but that too feels wrong, maybe even wronger. So he settles on just extending the jar in the other man’s direction.

“Here. Put it on those scratches twice a day, and it should keep them from scarring.”

Slack-jawed, Daichi accepts the balm, staring at it, and then at Suga. His mouth snaps shut. “All right. Thank you, Suga-san.” Suga nods, doing his best to smile away the air of seriousness in their conversation. Daichi slips the jar into his pocket, and mirrors Suga’s smile. “And I guess… starting tomorrow, I teach Hinata how to kill dragons.”

* * *

“Nichitatsu-san, where are you?”

The hills don’t answer. It’s probably stupid to call for a dragon, anyway. Basically begging to get eaten.

Hinata sighs, and continues picking his way along the same mountain path he took yesterday. But he’s gone further now, and further than makes him comfortable: the hills get steeper and the footing less sure as he searches for signs of the dragon. The range itself isn’t too wide (he can see the ocean to his left and the valley to his right, if he strains) so wherever the little guy got to, it can’t be too far off the path.

“Nichitatsu-san… come out—wha!”

He takes a bad step and slips down an incline, landing flat on his ass. As expected, his body aches from yesterday, and the aches intensify with this new fall. Hinata exhales. Now he gets a bruised butt to match his bruised chest. _Fall down seven times, get up eight. Ganbaru._ He springs to his feet, shakes out his limbs, and is about to start climbing back up to the path when something catches his eye. 

He’s landed in yet another rocky crevasse, but at the end where this one opens up lies the edge of a crystal clear mountain lake.

Hinata creeps toward it, wide-eyed. He’s not sure he’s ever _seen_ a lake before—they don’t have them on Karasuno—that he knows of—knew of! The rice fields resemble lakes sometimes during the planting season, but the imitation pales in comparison. The crevasse opens on to a narrow beach, little waves lapping at the edge. It’s beautiful, the bluest blue water over the rock floor. He crouches and wets his hand and finds it colder than expected, almost too cold. He pulls back. There are very few plants and no fish, but it might be too high up to sustain that kind of thing. 

Sunlight glares over the surface of the lake and Hinata raises his hand to shield his eyes. That glare, so bright it hurts. The light fades and he raises his head to lock eyes with the Nichitatsu, sitting on the opposite shore.

“Hello, Nichitatsu-san!”

The dragon assess him wearily. It lies with its front paws tucked together, head drooping, the injured wing unfurled at its side. Judging from the gloss in its eyes, things aren’t good. Hinata bites his lip. He needs to get closer to see the wound, how bad it really is. His stomach protests, but he circles the lake, the dragon’s gaze clinging to him. 

Once he gets within twenty feet, the Nichitatsu gets up and shrinks away from him. Right. He assumed that would happen. He’d come prepared.

Where yesterday he’d had his crossbow strapped to his back, today it’s a cloth sack. He slips it off, wincing at the smell, and pulls out a fish. 

Immediately he has the dragon’s attention. Ha! He _knew_ it would be hungry, there’s no food up in these hills for an animal outside, and he’d heard Suga-san talk about them wanting to eat fish so he’d—

The Nichitatsu takes a step toward him.

Seized with fear, Hinata flings the fish into the space between them, where it lands with an unattractive _splat_. The dragon leaps on the food at once and swallows it whole, one bite, then licks its chops and turns to look at him.

“Oh no, I’m not _next_ ,” he splutters, scrambling backwards and falling _again_. Heart pounding, he sticks his arm back in the bag and retrieves another fish to hurl at the animal’s feet. _Splat_. It eats this one a fraction of a second slower. “Wow, you’re really hungry,” Hinata mutters. The dragon peeks at him, its pupils more dilated than he’s seen, and it makes a funny noise. A little howl, _rooooo_. It sounds… happy.

Hinata gets back to his feet, watching to see if it flinches or shrinks and fear, but it keeps him pinned with that look of mild interest and satisfaction. _Okay, here goes,_ he thinks, and puts a foot forward in the dragon’s direction. And then another. He has to see that wing.

He makes it five steps before the dragon _bristles_ and he freezes automatically. He’s not sure he could will his legs to get any closer, even if he wanted to. Good news is, he can make out the wing from this distance. The dragon must have cleaned it in the lake, which means most of the blood is gone (he gives thanks) and the severity of the injury seems clearer than ever. The rope had ripped through the soft, thin wing tissue in several places, and now the jagged flaps of skin are folded and twisted every which way. Even without the blood it’s disgusting, and he has to swallow a gag. There’s no way the wound can heal like that, he realizes with a sinking feeling. The webbing can’t fuse back together if it’s all pulled apart. 

In craning to see, he had inched a little closer to the dragon, and it huffs in warning. With a yelp, Hinata skitters away as fast as his feet will carry him.

He can’t think of a single thing to do about this right now, so he dumps the rest of the fish from his bag and watches the Nichitatsu feasting happily before he gets on the path back to the village. 

All he wants is for the dragon to get well enough to fly away from Karasuno, back to wherever it came from. A darker thought pops into his head: _you could’ve just let it die_. It’s a dragon. Dragons have killed hundreds of his people, they’ve killed… 

 _But it didn’t kill me. It could have, and it didn’t_. For a few seconds yesterday he was certain of his imminent death—it’s impossible to overlook the feeling of surprise and gratitude that he still walks the earth today. If he’s going to be a coward, he’d rather be a merciful coward than one who lets nature do the job he couldn’t.

When he emerges from the forest into the village, he finds Yachi waiting outside his house, sitting cross-legged and stitching at a bit of cloth.

“Hinata-kun! Sawamura-san wants to talk to you.”

Recalling his previous conversation with Sawamura-san, Hinata blanches. “Really? Uh…” He squints into the house. “But I’m supposed to help Natsu with the laundry for Kiyoko.”

“She’s doing it on her own. She’s really efficient,” says Yachi with an admiring sigh. 

Hinata pouts. Even Natsu outdoes him. “Where is Sawamura-san?”

“Him and all the other scary strong men are practicing in the stableyard.” Great, so he’s going to have to deal with Tsukishima and Kageyama, too. 

“Thanks, Hitoka-san.” Yachi nods. Hinata stalks off in the direction of the farm, quietly hoping Sawamura-san will have the kindness not to shame him in public. 

* * *

As he nears the stableyard, the sound of swords clashing in repetition grow louder.

“Get him, Daichi!”

He passes by the Ukai house and into the open area behind, where none other than the captain and Kageyama are sparring. Delighted, Hinata ducks behind a tree to watch for a little before he reports in. It’s Sawamura’s plain sword and defensive stance versus Kageyama’s lightning-fast katana, superior size and solid form, but as far as Hinata can tell, Sawamura holds his own: he parries slashes Hinata couldn’t even think of catching, and doesn’t look fazed by the confidence of Kageyama’s attacks. He lets out a little _ooo_ at how cool they both look, like _bushi_ out of stories. Like samurai.

But a couple moves later and Sawamura starts giving up ground—he backs up to avoid Kageyama’s strength, and then more—until the pair runs out of yard and Sawamura’s back meets a shed. Their blades lock, and then Kageyama drops his and bows. He’s won. 

“Boring!” shouts Noya from the sidelines. He, Tanaka, Asahi and Tsukishima sit there watching, and they _do_ appear to be bored, which astonishes Hinata. He could never get bored of sparring, never. Daichi, out of breath, splashes water from a horse trough on the back of his neck.

“It’s only boring because Kageyama always wins,” Tanaka grunts.

“Which is why you should let me spar with _you_ , Nishinoya-san,” says Kageyama, sheathing his katana. Noya snorts.

“What, with that monster sword of yours? Nah, we can spar when you get yourself a good tanto.” He pulls the knife from his obi, and twirls it in his hand, making Tsukishima lean away. “Short, effective and to the point. Just like yours truly.” Hinata could swear he sees embarrassment cross Asahi’s face. 

Kageyama seems confused, if anything. “Swords are much more powerful.”

“Powerful!” Noya echoes. His grin vanishes, and he climbs to his feet, advancing on Kageyama. “Power is only one aspect of what we do. You should learn that if you want to become a samurai.” Hinata’s ears perk at the word. Kageyama, a samurai?

Kageyama turns from the shorter man, frowning. “That means very little, coming from someone who isn’t a samurai himself.” Tanaka is affronted enough by this to stand, but Noya just barks out a laugh.

“Me, a samurai! Like I’d want to join the ranks of Japan’s official arrogant bastard army.” 

Kageyama’s shoulders stiffen and his hand goes to the hilt of his katana, but Sawamura steps between him and Noya. “I think that’s enough friendly chit-chat for today.” 

As Noya bounces away from Kageyama he lights on Hinata, half concealed by a tree. “Oi! Shouyou! C’mere.”

Sawamura’s head turns, and Kageyama’s expression sours as Hinata trots over. “Sawamura-san wanted to talk to me,” he blurts out, feeling somewhere between extremely welcome and totally unwanted, based on the faces around him. 

“Ah. Yeah,” says Daichi, rubbing the back of his head. “So. Starting today you can train with us.” 

 _Yes_ —finally—he lets out a screech and jumps a foot into the air just as Kageyama spits, “ _What_?” Hinata almost flings his sandal at the tall jerk, out of sheer ecstasy— he’s been dying for this invitation since he was fifteen and first got stuck inside while all his peers were handed their first swords. 

 _Swords_. “Do I get a—”

Daichi gestures to Asahi, who raises a small but sturdy-looking blade and offers Hinata the hilt. Regardless of what Noya thinks, the weapon’s weight feels blissful in his hand. The noise that comes out of him is half monkey, half angry crow. Tsukishima looks vaguely ill.

“ _This—amazing—thank_ —Sawamura-san!” He finds himself shaking Daichi’s arm excitedly, while Tanaka and Asahi laugh behind their hands and Noya beams at him.

“It’s—no problem,” Daichi laughs, attempting to detach Hinata’s grip. “You’re not going to be fighting in the field with us right away, but for now… we’ll give you a few pointers for killing dragons, and see how you do.”

Hinata’s excited shaking slows, and he lets go of Sawamura. _Killing dragons_.

Uh-oh.

“Shouyou.” Noya squints at him. “Are you all right?” Judging by the sudden clamminess in his cheeks, all the color has drained from Hinata’s face. Here he was, thrilled to learn dragon fighting after years of waiting, when he’s already proven to himself that he doesn’t have the guts to make the kill shot. He stares at the new sword, his excitement slipping into fear and confusion. How could a weapon that fits his hand perfectly be so opposed to what he knows in his heart?

“I’m fine. I’m…” Swallowing his reservations, he lifts his chin. “I’m going to prove to you guys that I’m good enough to fight alongside you.”

Daichi smiles weakly, and Noya pops up to clap his shoulders. “That’s the spirit! We’ll make a dragon killer out of you yet!” _No you won’t_ , thinks Hinata, in private misery. 

“Now.” Daichi turns to the rest of the group. “It’s time to get to work. I think we’ll start with—”

“Sawamura-san,” comes Kageyama’s voice. He retreated from the group with Hinata’s arrival, but now he moves back toward them. “Respectfully, I think Hinata’s training should begin with a spar.” Hinata’s eyes narrow. No one asked for Kageyama’s opinion on his training, as far as he can remember.

“Between him and yourself, you mean?” 

“Yes.”

Daichi glances from Kageyama to Hinata, eyebrow raised. “Why is that?”

“So he can see for himself what combat is really like, before he begins training. And it would allow us to scout out his natural weaknesses, and his strengths, assuming he has any.” Kageyama _bows_ like the faux-polite jerk he is and Hinata wants nothing more than to take a swing at him, and he can feel Tsukishima’s smirk on his back too. Maybe he _will_ spar with Kageyama, maybe he’ll kick his ass and then, _then_ —

Tanaka lets out a low warning growl, “Daichi.”

Sawamura stares at Kageyama with his arms folded over his chest and a furrow in his brow. It seems like forever by the time he says, “I think you’re right, Kageyama.” Daichi addresses Hinata, “Do you—”

But Hinata is already marching toward the center of the yard where he’d watched the earlier duel take place. Kageyama follows, catching up with him in two strides. They square off, blades raised, and Daichi comes over to wearily officiate.

“I know Kageyama knows the rules, but Hinata, don’t swing through on any stroke that could potentially cause injury. A touch counts as a hit.” A small grin creeps over Kageyama’s face, as if even the idea of Hinata landing a hit amuses him. _I’m going to destroy you,_ Hinata seethes. “You win at three touches, or if you disarm the opponent or back him into a corner. Got it?” They both nod, staring each other down. Daichi eyes them, sighs, and retreats a few feet before he gives the signal to start.

Hinata’s first (and only) move is to fly at the enemy with his sword raised, swinging big, and for a second he actually sees a flash of fear in Kageyama’s eyes.

Then the katana comes up to meet his strike—the swords clang, and the force of Kageyama’s parry travels up his arms to his shoulders, clawing at his muscles. _Ow_. Is it going to feel like that every time they make contact? 

The answer, he soon discovers, is yes. Taking advantage of his pause, Kageyama swings down hard and Hinata throws up his sword just in time to shove him away, the blades hissing as they slide together. Hinata’s shoulders are screaming. Kageyama snaps from attack to attack without hesitation—he tries the same swing but in reverse, from the bottom, forcing Hinata to jump back or give up on having children in the future. As he struggles to regain his balance he remembers that spar earlier, how Kageyama had pushed Sawamura back too. _Shit. I can’t give up any more ground_. 

Kageyama raises his weapon again and Hinata seizes the opportunity to dive under the larger man’s arm, beneath the swing, his head passing inches from the katana’s scabbard. As he leaps, time slowing down inexplicably, he curves his sword around to tap the small of Kageyama’s back.

Hinata lands in a running crouch, clearing the area around his opponent; he anchors a hand in the dirt, using it to swing out of his momentum in a semi-circle, so he faces Kageyama again.

On the sidelines, someone, maybe Tanaka, lets out a low whistle. Did that look as cool as it felt? Hinata stays crouched, catching his breath, sweat starting to bead at his hairline, free hand still lodged in the dirt. Kageyama hasn’t moved, but stands with his sword raised and his head bowed, trembling.

“One touch for Hinata,” calls Daichi shakily. 

Kageyama turns around. _Shit_. His head is still bowed and it casts his eyes in blackness, his shoulders rising and falling with uneven breaths. The anger seeping from his aura crawls across the yard, wrapping around Hinata’s throat, choking him with fear.

With a yell that bursts from the very bottom of his chest, Kageyama charges, and Hinata moves just fast enough to get up and throw his sword between them defensively. The force of the collision shakes him like a gong that’s just been rung. Kageyama pulls back and strikes again, snake-like, and Hinata can feel himselfbarely keeping up with his opponent. He’s as fast as the other boy, but the weight of stroke after vigorous stroke makes his arms numb, and Kageyama doesn’t relent. Hinata starts to back up, to lose ground. He glances at the dark face above him and there isn’t a shred of pity or mercy in those unfriendly blue eyes. _He’d hurt me_. Hinata’s throat goes dry. _He could hurt me right now and he wouldn’t care_. One swing makes especially fierce contact and a whimper escapes Hinata, terror and pain, and something strange flickers over Kageyama’s face, but he catches himself and attacks again.

Hinata gets his sword up in time, but his arms finally give out under the weight, making the katana slide up his limp blade. He has to duck to keep it from slicing off his nose, which sends him into the dirt on his back. Towering over a disoriented Hinata, Kageyama whips the katana back and hooks it under the hilt of the smaller sword, so it flies up and out of Hinata’s grasp, soars for a moment, then falls into the outstretched palm of his free hand.

For a beat, the only sound in the stableyard is Kageyama and Hinata’s ragged breathing. Hinata struggles to sit up, and his gaze meets the penetrating stare of Kageyama.

“You don’t belong here.”

He tosses Hinata’s sword into the dirt beside him, and walks away. 

“I’m going to beat you one day, Kageyama, I swear on my life,” he cries, to no response.

Hinata bows his heads, eyes screwed shut, and when he sheds a few tears he tells himself it’s from the pain in his arms.

“Kageyama,” Daichi calls. “We still have work to do.”

“I’ll train on my own today,” Kageyama shouts over his shoulder, trudging down the road back to the village. 

“Hey, Shouyou, get over here.”

Hinata inhales sharply, wipes his face on his haori and gets to his feet. He feels like jelly—like pathetic, no-potential, mad-as-hell jelly. _You don’t belong here_. Fuck that guy. He shuffles over to where the older guys are waiting for him. 

Tsukishima takes one look at his face and stands. “Oh no, I don’t want to see this.”

“That’s perfect, actually,” says Daichi, grabbing the blond boy’s arm. “Because I have a bunch of old feed bags stuffed with grass, and we’re going to launch them in the air for some moving target practice.”

“How many do I have to hit before I can go home?”

“Ten, but I reserve the right to raise it to fifteen depending on how much you complain.” Tsukishima sighs dramatically, and Daichi gives them a wave as he guides his ward out of the yard. “You all, show Hinata what to do.” 

Hinata chews the inside of his lip; Asahi, Noya, and Tanaka are all sitting perched on a log, smiling at him. It’s a bit weird, and he’s seen a lot of weird lately. 

“That was a good fight, kid,” says Tanaka, reaching out to thump him on the arm. “I’ve never seen anyone land a hit on Kageyama that fast.” _What_? Hinata’s heart rate picks up. “No wonder he was fucking furious.” Kageyama had torn into him after he got his hit, because Kageyama felt… threatened. By _him_ , Hinata Shouyou. His chin starts to tremble. 

“He—the swords, they hurt my arms so much,” he blusters, not really knowing what else to say.

“That’s pretty normal,” Asahi offers sympathetically. “Your first few weeks will be a lot of pain, but you’ll be building muscle, and it gets better. And Kageyama’s strikes are heavy.”

“I tell ya, he’s obsessed with brute strength,” says Noya. “When you have a katana like that, the sword does half the work for you. But Kageyama swings like a maniac.”

Asahi sighs and rests his chin on the head of his hammer. “I wish I could make a sword that nice.”

With a glare, Noya punches him square in the arm, almost sending the blacksmith off the log. “Asahi-san, you know that sword was made by a guy with twenty years more experience than you, and probably the nicest forge in the country? You give it time and you’ll be making katanas that can slice mountains.” The glare snaps into a grin as Noya pulls out his knife and spins it on a fingertip; this time, all three of them lean away. “Besides, you already made the finest tanto this side of Honshu.”

“And you made the finest polesword, too,” says Tanaka, gesturing to his own weapon—essentially the shaft of a spear with symmetrical curved blades on either end.

“Nah, I think the one he made for Saeko is nicer.”

“Well the warrior princess isn’t _here_ right now, is she?” Tanaka shouts, and he stomps off purposefully with Noya cackling at his back.

A grin spreads over Hinata’s face throughout their conversation, the good moods of his mentors proving infectious. He’s content enough to ask, after it’s just him and Noya and Asahi-san, “Where _did_ Kageyama’s katana come from?” The black-haired boy has carried that particular weapon for as long Hinata can remember, but it _is_ queer for an eighteen-year-old in a poor isolated village to brandish such a prestigious sword.

As comfortable as he felt inquiring, he gets a little nervous at the look Noya and Asahi exchange. “Ah,” says Asahi. “I suppose you were kind of young back then.” Back then… 

“It’s a story for another day,” declares Noya, popping to his feet. “Do you want me to teach you some moves with the tanto? It’s very light.” Hinata nods, having quietly decided that swords may not be his forte, but it won’t stop him from fighting. “Perfect! Give me a second, though, it’s hot.” 

And it is: the sun sits right above them, beating down, even cutting through the shade provided by the trees in the yard. Hinata looks up and thinks of the Nichitatsu.

“Let’s go, Shouyou.” He turns and Noya has removed his haori, leaving it in Asahi’s arms, and Hinata’s eyes go straight to—to—

“ _Noya-san,_ there’s—twine in your arm.” Hinata clamps his hands over his face so he doesn’t have to look at it. Gross. Gross. So gross. 

“Hm?” Noya glances down at his bicep. “Oh _,_ you mean that scratch from the Watatsumi? Suga stitched it up.”

“If you throw your knife, it’s going to open up again,” Asahi says knowingly. “He’ll be mad at you.”

“Eh, let him. I’m fostering a young mind.”

“Why?” breathes Hinata, peeking at them through his fingers. “Why would he _stitch it up?_ ” Hinata’s stomach has a very negative opinion of this development.

Noya sizes up his horror and laughs. “Because it was a big gaping thing, the edges didn’t come together. It was never going to heal like that. Now I’ll be good as new.”

Hinata lowers his hands. The edges didn’t come together, so Suga had... tied them together. “That works?”

Asahi nods. “He did the same thing when that Mizuchi took a bite out of my leg last year.” Throwing Noya a sideways look, he adds, “It worked really well because I didn’t move around a lot.”

“Ha, Asahi-san. It’s sweet how you look out for me.” Noya moves to pinch his cheek, but Asahi swats him away. “Shouyou, when does the lesson start? I promise I won’t bleed on you.” Not waiting for a response, Noya starts into the center of the yard, stretching. 

Hinata has already started cataloguing the things he needs: a big needle, some strong twine, a much stronger stomach. A way to keep a dragon still while he sews parts of its body together. “Coming, Noya-san!” he calls, recovering his wits enough to wave to Asahi and stumble after. “Thank you!”

* * *

He wishes he could read.

It seems clear to him that the bottle in his hand has instructions written on it, but the little lines are lost on him. He’d just waited for Suga to leave, run into the apothecary, nicked the familiar-looking bottle and a big needle, and headed for the hills. The twine he’d sliced off from a big roll when he dropped Natsu off at Kiyoko’s, and the rags were scraps he found in the storehouse. So, not his most ethical morning, but he would bring everything back (of course! of course) and it was all for a good cause, ultimately. 

Hinata lifts the bottle into the sunlight, like if he can see it better he might suddenly know how to read. No such luck. “Natsu takes… two drops? Three drops?” he mutters. All he knows is, it took him too long to ask Suga when Natsu’s night terrors started up after their mother’s death. She’d wake up screaming, and Hinata was slow to realize that a potion could help put her back to sleep. “So you’re… thirty times the size of Natsu?” _I hope this works on dragons_. 

He checks over his shoulder, where the Nichitatsu watches him, more listless today than ever. Flies have gathered around its wrecked wing, and he makes a note to wipe the wound with a wet cloth before he closes it, like he’s seen Suga do with cuts. Frustrated at the prospect of simple math, he makes a snap decision and dumps the entire contents of the bottle on the basket of fish he brought. Well. That ought to put the dragon out for a bit. 

He tips over the basket and lets the fish spill out over the rock. The Nichitatsu hauls itself over and starts to eat, not caring that he’s only a couple of feet away. It took him a few days to come up with the potion idea and collect everything, but he had been visiting regularly, and the creature no longer seemed threatened as long as he didn’t try to touch it. 

Which makes what he’s about to do a frightening prospect.

The dragon either doesn’t notice the new smell on the fish or doesn’t care; thirty seconds later, the meal is gone. It looks at him and sighs, and he waits, holding his breath. It sighs again… and again. Its eyelids begin to droop.

The Nichitatsu lays down, lowers its head to its paws, and goes to sleep. Hinata raises his arms and whoops silently in victory. Take that, world! Take that, _Kageyama_!

Now comes the hard part. It takes him twenty minutes to do the job, though it’s not that difficult or excessive—only, his hands shake too much at first, and he has to stop twice to vomit, and once he gets nervous the dragon is stirring and runs to the other side of the lake. But then it’s done, and he sits back on his knees to assess his work: there are five long tears emanating from the original puncture, the triangular flaps of skin they created now pieced back together. When the wound heals and he removes the stitches (somehow), the scar will look a lot like a five-point star. “Kinboshi,” he murmurs. “That’s your name. And you’re a she, aren’t you?” The dragon, sleeping, heaves a sigh. Hinata smiles; he feels magic coursing through his veins.

He washes his hands in the lake and practices skipping stones for a few minutes, which passes into an hour. Kinboshi hasn’t woken up. _Please don’t die_ , he thinks desperately. The dragon’s chest continues to lift and settle. Still alive.

Half an hour later, he hears a huff behind him, and finds Kinboshi stirring. Her eyes are half-lidded, so the draught might not have worn off entirely, but she’s not going to die in her sleep, which makes him sigh in relief. Sensing something is different, she lifts her wing, and stares at the stitched up wound. “You’re really smart,” Hinata realizes quietly, as the dragon looks from him to the sutures, clearly making connections.

A dragon with stitches needs a fair bit of babysitting, he figures, and she still can’t fly well enough to catch her own food, so he ends up spending a couple hours by the lake every day that week. Sometimes he brings a little task to do, or his sword for practicing attacks (it seems like Kinboshi finds his swinging funny). But more often, he skips stones. He starts getting really good at skipping stones. 

One day, having headed up the mountain after training, he’s skipping stones and hot air skates over the back of his neck; he jumps around to find himself face to face with a tiger—no, a dragon, his dragon. Her eyes have regained a healthy sheen, and her wing is healing fast. Kinboshi stares at him, and this is as close as they’ve ever been, but for some reason he can’t muster up the will to be frightened. 

“What is it?” Hinata doesn’t know why he feels the need to talk to a dragon, but he doesn’t see why he shouldn’t, either. Sometimes he thinks they have regular conversations, like people. Her eyes slip down to the stone he was about to throw. Maybe… he turns back to the lake, and skips the stone. 

As soon as it’s left his hand Kinboshi streaks toward the water, and the sheer surprise of a huge dragon whipping by him makes Hinata shriek. She bounds over the water so fast and light that her paws barely sink in, and on her final leap she scoops the airborne stone into her mouth, plunging head-first into the lake. When she comes up a moment later, she opens her jaws and shows him the stone sitting on her tongue. Hinata could crawl out of his skin from smiling this hard—he’s _playing a game._ With a _dragon_. 

Kinboshi stays in the water while he skips stones to her; she plays like a big housepet, grabbing at them with her massive paws and throwing them in the air so she can catch them again. He starts to get chilly and realizes the sun is setting, but the colors over the village are too wonderful for him to head back right away. He can make it home in the dark, he decides, and he sits at the best viewpoint in the little alcove, watching the light fade. Eventually he feels Kinboshi’s presence near him: she watches the light going, too, and he wonders what the Sun Dragon does at night. She looks at him, and he looks back. On a whim, he extends a hand to touch her nose.

At first she pulls away and he thinks _, too far_. But he can’t move his hand from the air, it’s just stuck there with Kinboshi’s orange eyes scrutinizing it. 

And then the dragon moves forward and presses her face into his palm. She is _warm_ —he hadn’t anticipated just how warm she would be. Her gem-like scales feel smooth to the touch. Her eyes fall closed, and so do Hinata’s.

The next thing he remembers is waking up at sunrise.

The sun just peeks over the hills, cutting up into the bluish night sky. He rubs his eyes briskly. _Shit_ , he didn’t make it home, what about Natsu, what will Kiyoko say? He is curled up, not where he sat by the village view, but nearer to the lake. Did Kinboshi move him, or—Kinboshi.

The dragon is sitting upright, maybe twenty feet away from him, glowing white gold.

He makes some kind of noise, and she looks at him. The eyes that last night were orange now blaze like suns. Every inch of her radiates this pure light, strong enough to make him dizzy, filling the alcove with white. 

Kinboshi tilts her head back, breathes in, and shoots a ball of her white light a hundred meters into the still-night sky.

Hinata has to shield his eyes. He doesn’t know what to do, the light is so powerful and he’s _scared_ , scared of what’s going to happen, scared for his life, scared that he will never be able to move from this spot because he could swear something has him frozen here. The dizzying effect of the light finally overwhelms him—he passes out again.

By the time he wakes up for the second time, a couple of hours later, judging by the full sunny sky, he thinks this may have been a dream. Kinboshi is awake, sunning herself on a big rock. She isn’t glowing anymore than usual. Hinata clambers to his feet, groggy, feeling the way Ukai-san must feel the morning after he has too much sake at the big festivals. He makes it over to the lake and starts washing his face, hoping that it might shake away the lingering strangeness from that dream, or hallucination, or whatever it was. 

In the sky high over the hills, a black dot appears. 

His first thought is, _that’s a big crow, huh?_ Until it starts to drop lower, and Kinboshi leaps up, squawking. That… is not a crow. That’s another dragon. Coming straight for the lake. 

As it comes closer he can see the creature’s grey underbelly and jet black wings, though the shape is… He glances at Kinboshi: short body with long, thick legs, wide wingspan. A black dragon with a Nichitatsu’s build, he’s never heard of a thing like that, but it must exist because it’s flying straight for him. And, to his dismay, it’s showing no signs of slowing down. 

He does a quick scan of the area, but the alcove doesn’t offer many choice hiding places. He wishes he had his crossbow, or even his damn sword. Eyeing Kinboshi, he can see she doesn’t seem alarmed, but she’s a dragon and he’s a tiny human morsel, so her serenity means very little to him. 

The black dragon grows larger and larger and he prepares to _run_ as it sets down five feet away from him, with surprising grace for its speed and its body tensed in preparation to strike. It has the same face as Kinboshi, too, but all black. Except the eyes; its eyes are a dark, unfriendly blue. Hinata checks his sides, maybe if he dives, he can—

Gold streaks across his vision when Kinboshi dives between him and the black dragon, snarling.

He collapses to his knees. Another day, another fated near-death experience. The new creature’s demeanor melts into contentment the moment it sets eyes on Kinboshi, who snarls again. They make a few gurgling, squealing sounds at each other. Kinboshi lifts her half-healed wing to show the stitches. _They’re talking about me,_ Hinata realizes. Kinboshi is telling this strange dragon—her mate, or her brother, or something—what he did to save her. The black dragon’s gaze settles on him a second time, its pupils opening up. It slinks toward him, past Kinboshi, and stops a foot from where he sits. It gives him one more look, then bows its head.

“You’re welcome,” Hinata blurts. The black dragon’s ears flicker, then it slips back toward Kinboshi. The dragons curl against each other, cooing, their tails intertwining. Definitely mates. “There are two of you,” he says to himself, struggling to catch his breath. “Day and night. You match.”

Kinboshi catches his eye and pads over to him. She thrusts her head forward, and he reluctantly extends his hand to touch her nose. Is she going to do that weird sleep-magic thing on him again? But he doesn’t feel dizzy, and she only exhales before trotting off to sniff at the ground nearby. Meanwhile, the black dragon sits, staring at him. Not quite trusting, but tolerant. _The feeling is mutual_ , he thinks. 

Kinboshi returns with something in her mouth, and she snorts expectantly at him. “What? What do you want me to do?” Shit, he needs to get home _now_ , Natsu is going to—Kinboshi lifts her paw and nods. Oh. He extends his hand, and she drops something small, hard and wet into his palm.

A smooth, flat stone. Perfect for skipping. 

Well. Ten more minutes couldn’t hurt. 


	2. something strange

There is something strange about Hinata Shouyou.

Kageyama has long harbored an acumen for Hinata’s faults, since their parallel but rarely overlapping childhoods: the bright-haired boy was always too optimistic, too eager, too stupid to warrant his self-confidence. And it had never bothered Kageyama before, because those faults kept him down, out of Kageyama’s line of vision, out of Kageyama’s life. Flies can be annoying, but it doesn’t take more than a swat to get rid of one. 

Unless, of course, you give a fly a sword.

And it lands a sneaky hit to your back in the middle of a spar.

A sword is a promise—to be earned, or lived up to—a sword is not a _chance_. You have to have honor. You have to deserve it. 

You shouldn’t be someone who _lies_ about shooting a Nichitatsu, when people (like Kageyama) work their asses off (Kageyama’s ass) everyday and put their lives (Kageyama’s life) on the line carrying out very real attacks on very real dragons. That sort of childishness only disrespects the serious efforts of worthy others. Others, like Kageyama.

And it’s all too strange, too suspicious, that a fly should come up with such a calculated fib when most days he can’t keep from crashing into walls. His insistence he did something he clearly _did not_ strikes Kageyama as being at odds with his foolish desire to prove his abilities, though he has none. 

Well. Okay, so perhaps, judging from their brief-but-telling fight, his potential isn’t _nonexistent_ —he’s fast, good reflexes, maybe not such a clumsy shit after all—or it was a fluke. Either way, he’s leagues behind the rest of them. He’d need two minimum years of hard training to get him to an acceptable skill level, and they don’t have two years to waste, so let him keep doing Kiyoko’s errands. Don’t give him a _sword_.

Kageyama does badly with things and people who stray outside the insistent hierarchy of his world view; he doesn’t suffer mavericks. And he especially doesn’t suffer incompetent mavericks. His eyes go instantly to these ticking time bombs of disorder, as they struggle to swim beyond their original ponds. In the face of insubordination he becomes observant.

Which is why he’s all eyes and ears when, at around nine o’clock in the morning about a week after his first day of training, Hinata Shouyou tiptoes out of Suga-san’s apothecary.

Kageyama is down the path in his own little yard, suffering through some laundry with a pail and washboard, unmoving and distant enough not to catch Hinata’s nervous, flitting gaze. But Kageyama’s attention snaps to that violently-colored head of hair, and the slightly ragged state of his clothes, unmistakeable. _Why does he look so uncomfortable?_ He grunts, thinking how an aspiring warrior shouldn’t go creeping around, like a mouse who heard a rumor about a cat ‘round these parts.

Then he hears a crow-like squawk, and both boys jump. Another pip of orange flies at Hinata.

“Niichan! Where have you been!”

“Natsu, Natsu, I’m sorry—”

Kageyama snorts to himself. What a little shit, yelled at by a tiny girl and blubbering. 

“You can’t not come home and not tell me.” Kageyama’s ears perk. “I was going to tell Kiyoko-san but I didn’t want you to get in trouble for being a _bad brother_.”

“Ah, sorry, sorry, I fell asleep—I fell asleep in the woods, I was… collecting some things—” Hinata’s expression glazes over. The girl doesn’t notice the evasion in his voice, but Kageyama catches it, and his eyes narrow. 

“You have to stop going to the woods all the time, it’s weird and you’re never around anymore.” Going into the woods all the time? What is he, a fucking forest sprite?

“I’m _sorry_ , Natsu, I really am. I won’t do it again.”

“Do you promise?”

“I promise. I pinky-swear!” says Hinata, and the two of them head off, arguing about savory buns. Paused over the washboard, Kageyama watches the orange heads disappear at the far end of the lane. So Hinata has been spending time on his own in the woods, doing something secretive, and last night he slept out there. How does an earnest little dumbass like that end up wormed into dishonesty? Strange, definitely strange. 

His next clue comes later that day, when they’re returning to the village after three very long, sweaty hours of training in the stableyard. Hinata had nearly lopped Kageyama’s arm off during an exercise with the tanto, and they take turns surging ahead to lead the group, followed by a glowering Tsukishima, while Noya and Tanaka trail behind having a loud conversation about which dragon species would win in a fight and Asahi takes up the rear.

“A Kiyohime over a Byakko, any day,” Tanaka declares.

“Kiyohime are faster but the Byakko has more brute strength. It’s got those big burly legs.”

“Ah, the Kiyohime is beautiful but deadly, though. You know who they remind me of…”

Asahi pokes between them, apparently hoping to preempt one of Tanaka’s Kiyoko-is-incredible rants. “What about the Suzaku and the Byakko?”

“A Suzaku and a Byakko wouldn’t fight,” says Noya, waving his hand. “They’re _soutai_.”

Asahi lets himself fall a stride behind them, muttering, “Oh.”

“Soutai, Noya-san?” echoes Tanaka.

“Yeah, like… they’re kin dragons. It happens with some species.”

Hinata’s head turns—he’s eavesdropping, Kageyama realizes.

“So they’re related?”

“Sort of. It’s not about blood relation, it has to do with like, their spirits,” says Noya, rather obtusely. Someone sighs, maybe Asahi, but the sound is drowned out by Tanaka’s guffaw.

“I should ask Suga if I really want to know anything, huh?”

“Shut up! At least I knew what _soutai_ is.”

“Are you talking about me?” asks Suga’s voice sweetly—he’s standing at the entrance to the village, waiting.

“We’re talking about how Noya doesn’t know shit.” Tanaka claps his short friend’s shoulder, and the two of them get into a slap fight, Asahi trying to pry them apart.

“That could be true,” says Suga, smiling, and he turns to Hinata, who stiffens and bows at the acknowledgment. “I came to talk to _you_ , actually.” Seeing he’s free for the day, Kageyama makes to squeeze around Suga into the village, but Tsukishima shoulders past him, and then the boisterous trio of Tanaka, Noya and Asahi cuts him off as well. Which makes him the last person to get through the path, much to his annoyance, though it turns out to be a boon when he catches the beginning of Suga and Hinata’s conversation: “I could’ve sworn I had almost a full bottle left, but I seem to be out of sleep draught.”

Kageyama stiffens, and ducks around a corner to listen.

“That’s weird,” squeaks Hinata. Hinata, who had snuck out of Suga’s just that morning, reeking of guilt. What would a dumbass need with an entire bottle of sleep draught?

“Well, anyway, I have to replace it. I’m missing some ingredients, and I wanted to hire you to go collect them for me. I’ll give you and Natsu dinner for the week.” Suga doesn’t sound particularly suspicious, to Kageyama’s disappointment. He wants someone else to start sniffing out Hinata’s oddness too. 

“That’s very kind, Suga-san!”

His frustration bubbling over, Kageyama abandons his spying and stomps home, contemplating the uses of sleep draught.

* * *

“Niichan, I don’t want to make Suga-san wait.”

“Okay, I’m coming,” he calls over his shoulder, tossing Suga’s things into a basket. He’s collected ingredients in the past, but it comes down to the last minute every time, and he had only found the final kind of root he needed about an hour ago. He shoves the basket under his arm and hops to his feet. 

Natsu is squirming in the doorway. She’s put on the nicer of her two yukata, despite having slightly outgrown it—maybe she doesn’t notice. He hopes so, he doesn’t want to consider ordering another yukata from Ennoshita-san anytime soon. There’s no way they could afford it, and he’s been stealing too much lately.

“Let’s go!” She gives him a pithy glare and trots out into the street, and they make for Suga’s. He hasn’t been to the apothecary since he put back the empty bottle of sleep draught, and despite having confirmed Suga suspects nothing, the sight of the building fills him with anxiety. He’s not built for all this deception, the lying and creeping around, but thinking of Kinboshi he has no other recourse. If he comes clean, they’ll kill her. 

Suga-san has food waiting for them, and that in and of itself distracts Hinata from his concerns. There are hot buns and fresh rice and three whole fish, white meat falling off the bone. Suga-san doesn’t eat half as much as they do, and embarrassment stings Hinata’s eyes in between bites; he hates people knowing how hungry they get sometimes. It’s shameful not being able to keep your family fed, that’s what everyone has always said, though never to their faces. And Hinata can tell, from the way Suga refuses to look at them until the meal is done, that he pities them. Hinata keeps his head down as they clear the table. He could stand being poor, maybe, if he weren’t also proud.

But he can’t help being content on a full belly. Suga pours himself a small cup of sake, and the three of them sit outside and watch the sun sinking over the hills where he knows the two dragons are resting. Ever since that night when he’d first touched Kinboshi, this time of day has ballooned an ethereal warmth in the pit of his chest, beyond what he feels after a good meal. Natsu, stuffed and sleepy, clocks out of the conversation to rest her head in Hinata’s lap.

With the lull, he has a perfect chance to ask Suga a question that’s been weighing on him for a few days now, since he first heard Noya-san mention the term. “Suga-san, what are _soutai_ dragons?”

Suga lowers his sake from his lips, blinking. “Where did you hear about soutai?”

“Uhm. Noya-san said something about it, I was just…”

“No, it’s all right.” Suga smiles, warmly, and Hinata relaxes. “You’re curious. I would want to know everything about dragons if I had to fight them, too.”

“Right,” he mumbles.

“Do you remember,” Suga asks, picking up a twig, “what a dragon _is_ , Hinata-kun?”

Hinata stares at him. _What is a dragon?_ A… large winged reptile? “Uh…”

Suga grins broadly and begins scratching in the dirt with his twig. “A dragon is an incarnated spirit. I thought you might remember this from stories you heard as a child.”

Oh, that seems familiar—in stories, dragons always have proper names, and they’re tied to people or places. “But those are just stories,” Hinata points out, frowning. He can’t imagine that Watatsumi that landed in the rice field being the spirit of anyone’s grandpa or anything.

“All stories have some basis in the truth, that’s why we enjoy listening to them. No one wants to be lied to.” Suga continues scratching, and Hinata hopes faintly that he remembers he’s the only one here who can read. “Dragons are incarnated spirits, which means they can be the lives of people, or natural forces, or even gods. The translation of a spirit from one body to the next doesn’t work very neatly, so I’m not saying you could find a dragon and be talking to the old shogun—unlike in stories, dragons are still animals. But they share a special connection with the magic of this world.”

Hinata recalls the pillar of white light shooting from Kinboshi’s mouth into the half-dark sky, and the divinity that filled the air like thick heat; it’s not hard to believe that she has some kind of special magic about her. “So what’s soutai, then?”

“Ah, well, you remember how sometimes the spirits in stories have special connections to one another? It could be for a historical reason, or because they embody natural forces that have some kind of symmetry. Being soutai is about balance, two things that make a whole.”

“Like the day and the night?”

Suga looks up from his drawing, lips parted. “Yes. That’s a good example.”

Hinata ducks his head and absently tucks some hair behind Natsu’s ear. _Don’t give anything away. Don’t give anything away._ “What happens when dragons are soutai?”

Suga gives him another searching glance, but turns his attention back to the dirt at his feet, to Hinata’s great relief. “Well, we don’t really associate with dragons, so it’s hard to say. We know it means they’re less likely to turn on each other or fight for the same food supplies. In people—”

“ _People_ can be soutai?” Hinata gasps, and Natsu stirs with an unhappy noise. He strokes her forehead until she falls still again, and Suga continues in a low voice.

“All people are part spirit. That’s why we can be reincarnated into dragons after we die.” Hinata examines his palm, like he might find some trace of a spirit there. It looks ordinary enough. “Soutai people have a kind of weak psychic connection—I’ve seen some street performers use it to trick their audiences out of pocket money on the mainland,” Suga adds, with a laugh. “Otherwise, it’s nothing to write home about. Happens a lot with people who go through traumatic experiences together, and sometimes siblings.”

Hinata’s eyes widen and he glances down at Natsu, drawing another giggle from Suga.

“Can Natsu read your thoughts?”

“I don’t think so! I hope not,” he gulps. They’d shared a bedroom throughout Hinata’s long struggle with puberty, if his poor innocent sister had to witness any of _that_ —

“Then I think you’re probably free from soutai-dom.” Beaming, Suga finally sets down his twig, and scoots to the side, motioning for Hinata to sit by him. “Here, see if you can wriggle out from under Natsu. I want to teach you some kanji.”

“Kanji?” He undoes his obi to make a pillow for Natsu, in lieu of his leg, then joins Suga. He’s drawn four different symbols in the dirt, all very precise. There’s just enough light left in the day for Hinata to make them out. 

Suga indicates each of them: “Day—little sister—dragon—soutai.” Each symbol seems more complex than the last, more daunting. The one for _soutai_ might even be two symbols squished together. Suga hands Hinata the twig, pressing his fingers into a strange form around it, like the way Yachi holds the brush when she writes. “Copy each one a couple of times, it’ll help you recognize the shape better when you see them again.”

Hinata does his best to imitate Suga’s careful lines, but he takes twice as long and produces only half-recognizable results on his first attempt at each of the symbols. The one for “day” isn’t so bad, but the others… Suga goes around the yard, humming and lighting the lamps along the exterior of the house so they can stay outside a little longer. The nights have finally begun to stay warm past the sun’s setting. Hinata gives the kanji for _dragon_ another stab. 

“Suga-san?” The older man returns to sit by Natsu, tasting his sake again with a satisfied smile. “If dragons are spirits, shouldn’t they be protecting us instead of attacking us?”

Suga’s smile ebbs under the flickering orange light. “I often wonder about that.” So there _is_ a question about dragons that Suga can’t answer. And it’s the one Hinata most desperately wanted to understand. “How is your training going?” Suga inquires, hoping to turn the subject away from their doom, but Hinata’s mood sours immediately at the reminder.

“Terrible.” He smudges away a bad attempt at _soutai_ , imagining it’s Kageyama’s ugly condescending face. “I’m bad at everything—I’m bad at the sword, and the tanto, and Tsukishima won’t let me touch his bow, and Tanaka-san’s polesword is _way_ too long for me. I don’t have any experience, or any skills—”

“What about your crossbow?” asks Natsu’s small voice. She sits up, blinking at them groggily.

“That’s right, you like that thing,” says Suga. “Have you thought of asking Daichi if you could bring it to train with one day?”

Hinata shrinks, his eyes fidget between the inquisitive gazes of his companions. “I mean… no one else fights with a crossbow, so…”

“All the more reason for you to do it,” Suga offers brightly. “A diversity of skills just makes our forces stronger.”

“I’ll think about it,” Hinata mutters, and when Natsu yawns broadly, they say their goodbyes and walk home hand-in-hand. His weathered crossbow training in the same yard as Kageyama’s katana and Nishinoya’s tanto sounds like an insult to bushido _,_ tradition itself, but it could mean reactions from his peers other than laughter and pity. Whether or not he has it in him to become a samurai, the idea of being taken seriously for a day or two fills him with longing. A drop of water in the desert would be nice. 

* * *

The addition of the black dragon has brought some interesting new dynamics to his little alcove at the lake. Kinboshi doesn’t like him any less, he’s delighted to find—if anything, her loyalty to him seems to be growing. He can touch or pat her neck whenever he wants, now, and she begs to play fetch with the skipping stones during every visit. The black dragon he doesn’t go near, but the male (or, Hinata is pretty sure he’s a male) isn’t hostile, either. Mostly the creature just strikes him as a bit standoffish and uncharming, unlike Kinboshi, who Hinata now realizes could probably win over even Tsukishima. Not that he cares to test out that theory, but the point is: their personalities are almost opposite.

Only almost, however, as they have plenty in common, too—a lot of energy and a competitive spirit. Hinata arrives in the alcove one day to find them rolling around in the dirt squawking, and he’s about to jump in and save Kinboshi before he realizes they’re play-fighting for sport. The black dragon even treads carefully around Kinboshi’s still-healing wing.

 _Soutai_ … he spends a lot of time watching them interact, turning the concept over in his head. A part of him waits for some magical beam of light to appear between the two dragons and confirm what he already suspects—not that it would change anything, but he wants to understand.

While Kinboshi isn’t quite flight-ready, the arrival of the black dragon—who reveals himself to be a meticulous hunter—means Hinata doesn’t have to feed her everyday, and the second food source sees her gaining back healthy weight he hadn’t even noticed she’d lost in her illness. She moves faster, roars louder; even the special reflective sheen of her scales seems brighter to him. Watching her recovery brings Hinata a swelling sense of accomplishment, and cements his deep-seated certainty that nothing bad can happen to this creature, not while he has any sort of say in the matter.

But he can’t totally wean himself off giving her fish treats. She just gets so _excited_ , and it’s fun and cute to watch, and sometimes the black dragon looks slightly jealous of the attention she gives Hinata; it’s pretty freaking special to have a terrifying super-magical dragon be jealous of you. Of course, this sees him sneaking into the storehouse again, for maybe the thirtieth time in a few weeks, and one of these days someone’s going to notice and start—

“What are you doing?”

Hinata freezes with his fist full of dried salmon, a shadow cast from the doorway at his back. Of all the people he’d imagined might catch him in the act, the prospect of Kageyama Tobio was actually too horrible to contemplate. He turns slowly, because the longer it takes him to lock eyes with Kageyama’s nearly six-feet of intimidation, the better.

It happens: their eyes meet. A wave of existential zen washes over Hinata—is this how people feel before death? “I was just checking on the fish reserves, Kageyama-kun,” he says, with the amount of conviction you might expect from a ghost.

“You’re stealing,” says Kageyama flatly. Like he just _knows_. The part of Hinata that hasn’t died sparks with indignation.

“That’s a _ridiculous_ accusation,” he declares, waving the fish at Kageyama. At least his dislike of the other boy helps him put on a better show of lying through his teeth.

Kageyama bristles. “It’s not an accusation. I know you’re stealing, I’ve seen you do it before.”

The color drains from Hinata’s face. Kageyama—notices him? Enough to realize he’s up to something? “That’s… I don’t, uh—” Shit, shit, he’s losing face and a sense of reiterated superiority settles over Kageyama’s.

“Stop blubbering, I’m not going to rat you out.” Hinata stares up at him. First Kageyama notices him, now he’s giving up an opportunity to be vindictive. “Just because I know they won’t care,” he adds quickly, as if he’d felt his front slipping and needed to throw out a jab to keep Hinata from thinking they’d become friends. “I’m sure Suga-san knows you’re a thief too, and he lets you get away with it because you’re a charity case.” Hinata’s jaw clenches. Naturally Kageyama would be the only one cruel enough (or dense enough) to say what everyone else is thinking. “But I know you’re not just that.”

His jaw loosens, and Hinata lifts his head to meet Kageyama’s icy gaze. Fear kicks at his stomach, but another feeling, too. Legitimacy. Kageyama has acknowledged him as something more than pitiable—nothing thrills him more than being considered a real threat in the eyes of a rival. He even smiles, and spies Kageyama flinch at the sight. “What else am I, then?”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out. And when I do, I won’t hesitate to tell Sawamura and Sugawara.”

“Good luck with that,” Hinata declares, his confidence suddenly raging, but as soon as a scowling Kageyama has stomped off he has to grab the wall for support. Being a legitimate threat also comes with legitimate danger, and an ultimatum like that from Kageyama wouldn’t be issued lightly—well, actually, he has heard Kageyama issue a lot of ultimatums (toward other people, animals, once he heard him yelling at the path for tripping him)—but this one strikes him as very real, not the product of some angry tangent. Hinata will have to watch his back, whatever that entails. Hinata has never had anyone be interested in his back before.

With an extra bit of bounce in his step, he stuffs Kinboshi’s treats in a bag and heads for the hills.

* * *

The horses aren’t happy. 

Horses, Sawamura Daichi has understood since his childhood, have finely tuned internal cogs: tuned to the people around them, tuned to other creatures, tuned to the weather. They can sense the big storms, and when Daichi’s had a rough encounter with the boss. His father, before he passed, had taught him that a horse is so sensitive to the movements of its master, you can lead one wherever without a single touch—just the careful motion of a hand, and the correct placement of your body beside it. It has to do with the natural spirit that flows between you and the animal; with trust established, you feel together, see together, move together. A good rider doesn’t need a saddle or a bridle, not if he and his mount have trust.

Today he feels anxious, because the horses are anxious. He stands with his arms on the fence, watching their ears tremble, their tails flick. Occasionally one will spook at nothing and canter to the opposite end of the paddock, sending the others into chaos as well.

The sky is clear, and he hasn’t had any arguments with Ukai since the Watatsumi fell, so this behavior worries Daichi. The horses _know_ when something is wrong, something big, and he trusts—relies on, even—their wisdom. They’re sensing an imbalance so he feels it too.

“Yo, Daichi!”

Noya and Tanaka are coming up the path from the village. Right, it’s almost time to train for the day; they usually aim for the early afternoon, so they practice working in the worst heat. Lately with the addition of Hinata, and Kageyama’s subsequent terrible attitude, the sessions have felt scattered and unproductive, and Daichi shudders to think what the next few hours might have in store. Hopefully they’ll all come out with their limbs attached.

“Where’s everyone else?” he asks, grabbing his sword from its spot in the feed room, and joining Noya and Tanaka in the yard.

“Tsukishima’s not coming today,” says Tanaka around a bun, apparently retrieved from his pocket. “Akiteru-san caught me on my way out and told me. Some family thing.” He swallows, then turns to Noya. “Tell him why Asahi-san isn’t here.”

Noya blanches, his nose wrinkling, and Daichi has to cover his mouth to keep from laughing. “Because,” Noya keeps his voice low, like he doesn’t want anyone to overhear, “he’s repairing my tanto.”

“And why is he repairing your tanto, Noya-san?”

Noya’s mouth scrunches angrily at Tanaka, but he keeps his voice soft still. “Because I threw it into a tree.”

“And what has Asahi-san told you a thousand times?”

Noya shuts his eyes and turns away for a moment. “Not to throw my tanto into trees.”

Grinning, Tanaka turns back to Daichi, who promptly loses it, sliding halfway off the log in his laughing fit. “You’re lucky Asahi likes you so much,” he wheezes. “All the free repairs you could want.”

“Me and Asahi are square,” says Noya flatly, and he gets up; if he ever had any good will about the teasing, it’s gone now. Scowling, he stomps into the center of the yard and pulls out what must be his second-best knife, and Daichi bites his lip at Tanaka, who only shrugs. Not worth getting into, it seems. Noya starts shouting at nobody in particular, “Where the fuck are those kids? Lateness is disrespectful, I won’t stand for it.”

Daichi hears Hinata and Kageyama before he sees them: twin roars sound from the village path, accompanied by the thundering of feet on dirt, and then they burst into the yard with identical leaps, screaming.

“ _I win_ ,” screeches Hinata, throwing his hands above his head. Kageyama tries to push them back down.

“I was a full foot ahead of you!”

Pain settles in at the front of Daichi’s skull; Noya and Tanaka look at him expectantly, swallowing their laughter. Somehow or another, Kageyama gets Hinata in a headlock, but they go still when Daichi stands. He stares at them, knowing full well it’s an expression that could peel paint, and even Noya feels nervous enough to chuckle.

“Let go of your comrade, Kageyama.” Kageyama release Hinata so fast that the smaller boy falls into the dirt, and has to hop back to his feet. “You two do _know_ you’re comrades, right? Same team. Same goal. Helping each other only helps yourselves.” Hinata glances up and sideways at Kageyama, whose own eyes stay trained on the ground. Daichi takes a moment to size them up, make sure they seem appropriately put down, and then rubs the back of his neck. “We’re going to get started, now. Your objective for the day is not to kill each other.” They both nod. “Okay, so—”

“Captain, Sawamura-san, wait!” Hinata bounds forward, pulling something off his back. “I brought my crossbow today, I was wondering if—”

A scoff from Kageyama, “That’s a peasant’s weapon.”

“We’re all peasants, stupid!”

“I’m not a peasant,” says Kageyama, with a hint of confusion in his voice, and an alarm blares in Daichi’s head. _Nope_. Hinata is about to argue, but Daichi grabs his elbow.

“I’ll take you out for target practice, then, since Tsukishima isn’t here today.” The orange-haired boy grins at the prospect, his attention sufficiently drawn from Kageyama’s odd statement, and Daichi starts leading him for the field. “Kageyama, you work with Noya and Tanaka-san for a while.”

“Oh boy!” Tanaka deadpans.

Daichi lets go of Hinata once he’s sure the boy will follow him, and he half-listens to a lengthy explanation about the crossbow in question. His father’s from the wars, he’s practiced a lot with it, okay, okay. More pressing is Daichi’s need to recover from the near-disaster of just a few minutes ago: Suga would never have forgiven him, and it’s mostly loyalty to Suga that has him guarding the truth so doggedly. But the older Kageyama gets, the more nuanced and challenging the task becomes; he won’t be able to keep it up much longer.

The targets sit in a wheelbarrow out by one of the empty fields, the shovel and small log that comprise his makeshift catapult strewn nearby. Tsukishima’s role as their archer is arguably the most unique and important: only he can attack before a dragon nears the ground, making him an essential if unenthused participant. To Daichi, that means separating him from the group as often as possible, so he’ll actually train instead of clocking out. Hence the private set-up. 

He’s got no problem letting Hinata have a few shots in Tsukishima’s place, if it keeps him from asking questions about Kageyama. As the boy talks, he starts setting up the first target. His foot slips on the shovel and bites into his ankle, throwing him out of his daydream.

“Captain? Sawamura-san?”

Hmph. Somehow he gets the feeling that’s not the first time Hinata had said his name in the past few minutes, and he sucks his lip. Whoops.

“Yeah, sure?”

The kid is standing there, hugging the crossbow (which does look to have seen a war or two). “Thank you for letting me try with my bow. I know it’s not very honorable or anything.”

Daichi blinks at him, then shakes his head, fixing the launcher. “A dragon that’s killed by a crossbow is just as dead as a dragon killed by a katana. This isn’t about honor, it’s about safety.”

“ _Ossu_ ,” Hinata mumbles, settling in to watch the sky. Daichi drops the target, an old burlap feed sack stuffed with dry grass, on to the shovel. Hinata’s hands are shaking, he notices; there’s no way he’ll make a shot like that. Daichi glances in the quiver—what’s he got in there, twelve bolts? Fifteen? They’ll have to keep going until the kid gets a few, which means Daichi could end up wading out to retrieve any that land in the water. But it’s _fine_. 

“Ready?” Hinata nods. Daichi brings his foot down hard and fast on the handle of the shovel, and the little bag flies out over the field. There’s a click and a whoosh as Hinata fires. Daichi watches the treeline on the opposite side of the field, hoping the bolt will at least bury itself in a trunk so they don’t have to search for it, but he doesn’t spy anything zooming that way.

“Captain-san,” says Hinata with a sigh, reloading his bow as though nothing strange has happened, “I don’t know if Kageyama is ever going to accept me being on his side.”

“Hinata? Did you see where that shot went?”

Hinata frowns at him, and then out at the field. “Into the target?”

Sure enough, there it is, floating on the watery field: a feed bag with a bolt straight through the middle. Daichi swallows—just luck, probably, with how unsteady Hinata’s hands have been—but still.

“Good shot,” he manages. 

Hinata bows and Daichi drops the next target into the shovel. This one’s smaller, he’s seen Tsukishima struggle with it. Hinata lifts his bow and Daichi brings his foot down on the handle again—this time he watches everything, from Hinata’s finger squeezing the trigger, to the bolt rattling from the stock, to its trajectory over the field, to the _whoomph_ as it pierces the falling target straight through the middle. The bag plunks down in the field water, where Daichi stares at it, his mouth hanging open.

“I don’t think Kageyama and I are compatible as allies, is all. Sorry, Captain-san,” Hinata groans, loading another bolt. 

_That can’t have been another fluke… that’s impossible. What has this kid been doing for the past three years?_

Just to be sure, Daichi hastily loads a third target and sends it up the moment he sees Hinata is ready—same result, _whoomph, plunk_. He barely even looks at the targets before firing, he’s not even _focused_ , it’s...

“He’s never going to accept me… even for the good of the village.”

“Hinata.”

The boy lifts his head, fiery hair flopping into his eyes. “Yes, Captain-san?”

“You’re a really good shot. Kageyama… is lucky to have you on his side.”

Hinata’s wide brown eyes glitter, and his chin starts to tremble, grin splitting across his face. “ _Ossu!_ ” he shrieks, sticking his crossbow in the air.

“Let’s empty that quiver,” says Daichi, loading up the next target, infected with Hinata’s grin. The boy snaps to attention, shaking more than ever now; it’s amazing to think what they could do with a second archer. This could be precisely the boost their little squad needs. 

Back in the stableyard, Kageyama stands frozen with his katana drawn, his and Tanaka’s spar forgotten—he can just see over the top of Ukai’s house where the targets soar upwards and then sink after being hit. One after the other, like clockwork. 

“Yo, Kageyama, we’re in the middle of something!” Tanaka calls, but Kageyama doesn’t budge.

A crossbow, a _peasant’s weapon_ … Hinata hits another target and Kageyama’s nostrils flare. _Good aim. That’s all_. He turns back, rage pulsing down the length of his arm as he raises his katana with white knuckles. This has to stop. 

“Let’s go, Tanaka-san.”

* * *

“Kinchan, you have to share.” Kinboshi hisses weakly at him, a punished child, but she leaves the last fish for the black dragon—Haizora, Hinata has decided. Kinboshi and Haizora.

The sun shines relentlessly overhead as Haizora scarfs down his treat; under that sun today’s training felt particularly ruthless, and the dried sweat has caked with dirt on Hinata's skin. But of course, that’s what gorgeous cool mountain lakes are for, and he eyes the inviting water impatiently. Haizora gulps down the fish whole and saunters off like an especially haughty cat, still refusing to come within a couple feet of Hinata. “You know who you remind me of, Haichan?” Hinata muses loudly, scratching Kinboshi’s ear. “I know this guy who refuses to accept me as his ally, even though we want the same thing, really. For the village to be safe. I guess _you_ don’t really care if the village is safe.” He meets Kinboshi’s eyes, the pupils wide and endearing. “But neither of us wants them to hurt Kinchan. We have common interests!” When he looks up, the black dragon has curled up in a corner of the alcove, ignoring him. Yeah, that kind of behavior definitely rings familiar.

Kinboshi pads over to join her—mate or her soutai, he isn’t sure he understands the difference just yet. So Hinata goes to the shore, undoes his obi and lets his haori fall from his shoulders, already enjoying the cool air on his bare chest. He unwinds the straps of cloth around his palms and wrists, the skin under them red and tender from his sword’s rough grip; the Captain says they’ll get tougher the more he practices, and in the meantime it’s best to avoid blisters. Feeling freer already, a smile creeping over his face, he tilts back his head and raises his arms and lets the breeze curl around him.

A tiny pain prickles at his neck—had he gotten nicked there today without realizing it? He lifts his fingers to assess the wound but their pads brush something cool and metallic instead. 

“Move and you’re dead.”

Kageyama.

 _Shit_.

More specifically, Kageyama pressing the edge of his katana into the skin of Hinata’s throat, an inch from his artery.

There’s a terrible low snarl at their backs and Kageyama’s distraction gives Hinata a half-second to fling himself away from the blade, only to duck again when Kageyama swingsat the approaching figures of Kinboshi and Haizora. 

“ _Fuck_.” He lunges again at the dragons, panic straining his voice. “Get back, get—away!” 

Hinata catches the terror in Kageyama’s eyes, having almost forgot the effect two very angry dragons has on a person—their bodies sunk low in preparation to pounce, growling mouths bearing double rows of teeth like fine ivory knives, held off only by the katana’s trembling swing. The blade slips in Kageyama’s sweaty hand and he scrambles to steady it, but out the corner of his eye Hinata sees Kinboshi move to strike, and he throws himself on his knees between dragon and rival, hands raised.

“ _No_ , he’s a friend!”

The dragon shrinks back, surprised but respondent—behind him he feels Kageyama raise the katana but he wheels around, arms stuck forward urging caution.

“Put that away!”

“So I can get torn to bits? Fuck no!”

“Put it away or I won’t stop them again,” Hinata spits. After a flurry of motion they are still enough now to meet one another’s gazes and Hinata can see panic and fury in Kageyama’s, the bitter learned fear that crouches at his shoulders and bears its own fangs, after eighteen years of _run or kill_ when faced with one of these creatures. But there’s fear pouring off the dragons at Hinata’s back, too, the same question of _run or kill_ burning in them, and they’ll be infinitely harder to talk down. “Kageyama, I said _put your fucking sword away_.” Kinboshi growls, as if to emphasize.

Kageyama swallows hard, indecision playing around his mouth as he struggles between striking back and following the instruction. The katana stirs in his grasp and for a moment Hinata is sure he’ll choose wrong—that he’ll slice through anything in between him and the dragons, including Hinata’s torso, and drag all three of their bodies back to the village as trophies— _look at this, three enemies vanquished on one day_.

But something changes, a bird chirps or a twig snaps and the inert tension stewing around them finally shifts. Kageyama exhales, shuts his eyes for a moment, then lowers the katana. Hinata’s shoulders slump, unwound. _Thank you_ , he thinks, to no one in particular. _Thank you. Thank you thank you._ Behind him, Kinboshi and Haizora lift from their twin crouches, and Kinboshi brushes her nose against Hinata’s back.

Kageyama sheaths the sword, his expression hardening into inscrutability. “I guess I know what you are, now.”

“Right,” Hinata sighs, resting a hand on Kinboshi’s neck when she hovers at his side. “Well, you know, they just—”

“Traitor.”

He goes cold, the air flees his lungs. He lifts his eyes from the diamond scales atop Kinboshi’s head, and the look on Kageyama’s face steals the words from his mouth.

Silently, Kageyama turns his back to Hinata and starts out of the alcove. Hinata leaps after, reaching to hold him back.

“Kageyama! Kageyama, _no_ , please!”

“Shut up, you’re a fucking—this is _unnatural_ , whatever you’re doing up here.” Hinata’s hands close around the loose folds of Kageyama’s haori and when he tries to shake off the grasp it sends an unsteady Hinata into a wall of rock; the stones scrape the bare skin of his back and arms and Kinboshi growls, but Hinata manages to wave her off and sprints after Kageyama with every ounce of speed he can muster. The bigger boy moves determinedly but not fast, and he rears back to find Hinata between himself and the crevasse that leads back to the village path. 

“Shit, how’d you—”

“Don’t tell, Kageyama, you don’t understand!”

“I understand that you’re a _freak_ ,” Kageyama roars, spittle finding Hinata’s lower lip; he wipes it away. “You know what those things are capable of, they’re monsters, and you’re up here cuddling with them?”

“It doesn’t have to—”

“We kill them because they kill us—one of them killed your own mother, didn’t it, so what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

As soon as the question leaves him, Kageyama recoils at the touch of that nerve, almost apologetic; there is a certain chill sliding over Hinata, the flare of an old injury, the prick of a bramble he’d forgotten sits wedged in his spine. The memory latches over him and speech would be impossible and breathing comes laborious, he inhales just a little gasping hiccup, nothing more. His mother. His mother—would have _wanted_ —

“Right. Yeah,” Kageyama says darkly, at his silence, as though that settled it. 

The other boy squeezes by him and continues for the path, a new severity in his step. His mother, letting Natsu pull on her hair, telling him how his father would certainly be home soon, only a few more weeks of fighting over there, surely. Sighing on a cold day, white air billowing from her mouth. His mother would have wanted... 

“I think I can train them.”

Hinata manages to unglue himself and turns to face Kageyama, whose gait slows.

“It doesn’t have to be like it is.” _Don’t cry,_ he orders himself, when his throat starts clamping up, but when has an order ever worked on that before? “The killing and fear, that’s… unnecessary. They’re _smart_ , and they listen, and they’re not hostile once they know you don’t want to hurt them.” He feels Kinboshi’s warm presence at his back, guarding him, and he lets her curl around his waist protectively. The gesture soothes him, stalls any tears. “They could be our allies, I think. We could work together.”

Kageyama half-turns to look at him, staying silent for a long time, gears clicking behind his eyes. Sobered in the wake of that emotional surge, Hinata holds his gaze, and swallows before he speaks again.

“You could choose a new future for our people, or the personal glory of ratting me out. What’s it going to be, Kageyama?”

Kageyama maintains his sideways stare another second. _Come on_.

He turns his back again. 

“Personal glory.”

“Kageyama, _no_ —” Hinata surges away from Kinboshi to catch him again. “I’ll do anything, I swear—”

That stops Kageyama in his tracks. 

“Please, please, shit,” Hinata pleads, skittering around the other boy so he can throw himself on the ground at his feet, forehead an inch from the dirt, a beggar’s bow. “Anything, I promise, just don’t tell anyone. Give me more time.” The benefit of having no honor: he’s not above groveling if that’ll change Kageyama’s mind, and it seems worth it, for Kinboshi, for his mother.

“Anything?” growls Kageyama’s deep voice above him. He careens his head just enough to peek upward, to see the angle of those high cheekbones and the unforgiving mouth twisting, the whole of this boy forged like iron, and Hinata cannot imagine ever knowing softness from him. No, compassion won’t sway Kageyama (he’ll laugh at this thought in later years), but self-interest could. 

“Whatever you want,” Hinata breathes, stirring up the dust near his cheek. The apple of Kageyama’s throat bobs.

“Drop out of training.”

Hinata squeezes his eyes shut. Of course, he should have known. It’s probably just as well; eventually Sawamura-san was going to ask him to do something in a real fight, and he’d just clam up. “Yes,” he murmurs.

“And.. and I want to watch you try to train them!” Kageyama adds. “I want to be there, no more secrets from you. I want to know what you’re up to, and if you start _lying_ —”

“I won’t, I won’t lie, I’ll tell you everything!”

“And you can keep them from attacking me? You’ll swear to call them off if they get too close?”

“Yes, absolutely.”

“I'll kill them if you don't.”

Hinata grits his teeth. Asshole. “I know.”

“I wouldn’t believe you could do that if I hadn’t just seen it happen,” he says, considering out loud. Hinata grimaces: he gets it, Kageyama thinks he’s shit, the reminders can stop. A long pause, then, “Okay, get up.”

Head bowed, Hinata climbs to his feet, trying in vain to brush the dust off of himself. He thinks maybe some of the scrapes on his back drew blood, but he doesn’t care to check, really. A dip in the lake will wash it away once he’s free of Kageyama’s babysitting. “I’m up here two or three hours a day. You want to be here for all of that?”

Kageyama snorts violently, glowering down at him. “Nice try. Find me whenever you’re headed up.” He glances back toward the lake, where both dragons have been sitting, observing their conversation; Kinboshi’s dagger eyes are locked on Kageyama, while Haizora’s expression of reserved annoyance looks about the same as usual. Hinata spies a nervous squint in the other boy’s eyes. “You have… a month, to convince me you can train those things. After that I tell Suga-san.”

“Got it,” says Hinata, licking his lips. Kageyama keeps eyeing the dragons. “You want to meet them?”

“Meet them? They’re dragons, haven’t we already met?”

“No!” Hinata trots back to Kinboshi, gesturing for Kageyama to follow, but the other boy keeps an extra ten paces between him and the animals, his shoulders locked with tension. A month to get Kageyama to trust these dragons; considering it took Hinata a day, that seems proportionate. He has approximately, what, thirty times the love in his heart that Kageyama does? Sure. He can do this in a month. “This is Kinboshi. She’s—” He’s about to say _my favorite_ , but reconsiders, with Haizora right there. “She was the one I shot. See?” He nudges her wing and she lifts it to show Kageyama, who steps back, eyes widening. _I told you they were smart_.

“You weren’t lying about shooting one of them.”

“You _just_ realized that?”

“All right, shut up!”

“I did shoot her,” Hinata admits, stroking the dragon’s head. Hard not to feel bad about that, since she’d nearly died, but now they have this opportunity to change everything. Their world; the world of dragons. “Afterwards I came up here to find her, since no one would come with me,” he says pointedly, drawing a glare from his human companion. “And I found her and... there was this moment. Where I thought she would kill me. And she didn’t.” He doesn’t mention that he’d given up the opportunity to kill her first—he doesn’t want Kageyama knowing he can’t strike that final blow, the kill. He froze once and now he’ll never do it; he’ll be choosing mercy for the rest of his life. Kinboshi cracks open her maw and purrs in his face, and he winces at the gush of hot air, leaning away.

“And now you’re friends? Because she didn’t spill your guts?” asks Kageyama, with what might be an attempt at sarcasm, but he only sounds angry. Which is how he usually sounds.

Hinata blinks. “Yes. That was the only thing keeping us from being friends before, wasn’t it?”

He doesn’t know what to make of the long, inscrutable stare this question earns from Kageyama. It makes him feel strange and suspect, like he’s under investigation, like there’s something suspect or unique about those words.

Eventually, overwhelmed by the attention, he blusters, “What? What is it?”

“You…”Kageyama shakes his head, shrugs. “You’re weird.”

“Look who’s talking,” Hinata chirps. Kageyama looks disproportionately infuriated by this comeback.

“Does the other one have a name too?”

“Oh. Yeah. That’s Haizora.” The black dragon gives Hinata a withering look, then turns and trots off. “He doesn’t like me as much.”

“Maybe he’s got the right idea,” Kageyama snorts, making himself comfortable on a rock by the shore. “Kinboshi and Haizora… you picked those?”

“Yeah!”

“ _Gold star. Ash sky._ Not very intimidating.” 

“I didn’t _want_ them to be intimidating, they’re not weapons.” Hinata exchanges a glance with Kinboshi, who seems puzzled as to why the tall black-topped two-legger is hanging around. “That’s Kageyama,” he explains. “He’s going to be spending time with us from now on.” Kinboshi grunts noncommittally and nuzzles him before bounding away to her sunning rock.

“Why are you talking to them?” Kageyama demands, watching Kinboshi go with his arms over his chest. “They can’t understand.”

“They understand a lot. Just because they don’t respond, doesn’t mean they don’t get it.”

He feels the other boy’s gaze boring into him as he tests the cool water with his bare feet. It feels _good_ , he wants to dive in, but that would mean stripping entirely and Kageyama is just… sitting there. Leaning over to catch Hinata’s attention. 

“What?”

“Aren’t you going to train them? You said you’d train them, what are you doing?”

“I want to swim.”

“So when’s training?”

“Later. Or tomorrow.”

“You little shit.” Hinata bites back a grin while Kageyama springs to his feet, pacing the shore. “So I just have to sit here? I’m going to do some drills,” he decides, hand going to his scabbard, but Hinata lurches toward him.

“ _No swords_. Not after you threatened them like fifteen minutes ago.” Casting a wary eye toward the dozing animals, Kageyama lowers his hand.

“So what? I just fucking sit here?”

“Dunno. You could relax, enjoy nature a bit.” Turning back to the water, Hinata has to stifle a giggle. Kageyama’s _punishment_ for following him out into the woods and blackmailing him into dropping out of training. He’s going to look like a big idiot when he tells Sawamura-san, after how excited he was to be included, so yeah, some mild torture is called for.

“Swimming,” Kageyama mutters. Hinata glances over his shoulder, alarmed for some reason at the prospect of Kageyama joining him. Usually people bathe in a little spring on the far side of Ukai’s farm, but he can’t remember ever seeing Kageyama there. It always seemed as though he thought maybe he was too good for it—this guy has, after all, convinced himself he isn’t a peasant, against all odds. But he never looks dirty, either, so he must bathe somewhere. Just, not with Hinata.

“Swimming, yeah. The water’s nice and I’m sweaty.” Hinata starts undoing the knot of his hakama, the two-legged, more fitted kind everyone wears around here. More fabric costs more, and the billowy things popular in the cities aren’t functional for farm work. Even princely Kageyama wears his hakama slim. 

“I’m coming too, then.”

“Great,” says Hinata through his teeth, and he lets the hakama fall from his waist, exposing himself. “So strip!”

* * *

“Quitting?” Suga echoes.

Daichi nods, running his hand over the neck of the mare he’s grooming. “It’s strange—he was finally starting to get somewhere. I’ve never seen such a natural shot. His swordsmanship was looking better, too.”

The horse stomps, her hoof raising dirt from the stable floor, and Suga backs into a stall door. His expertise in large animals is all theory, no practice. “Did he give you a reason?”

“Not until I asked.” Thick horsehair comes off in bunches as Daichi combs out the mare’s winter coat; he tosses the shedding into a pail, where eventually it’ll be sold or used. “And then he said it was because of Natsu. He didn’t want her to worry about him.”

“Hm,” Suga says to himself, admiring Daichi’s confident, repetitive motions. He has a nice way about him when he’s working like this, it makes you understand why the horses trust him. But Hinata, and his story about the Nichitatsu, and how quickly he’d latched on to the concept of soutai. Suga has a good sense of people, he thinks, and especially people like Hinata Shouyou, who wears his emotions plainly on his face, and his sense of Hinata is that there’s something that boy wants to keep from them. With how earnest and easily excited he can be, it’s difficult to say whether or not they should be alarmed.

“ _Hm_ ,” Daichi mimics, tossing Suga a grin over his shoulder. “I get the feeling you don’t think it has anything to do with Natsu.” 

“I can’t say I do.” Suga tries not to dwell on the twinkle in Daichi’s eye before the other man turns back to his work.

“Well, me either.”

“So what it is?”

“Honestly, Suga-san, I was hoping you could tell me.”

“I’ve got nothing,” Suga sighs, leaning against the stall door. “I mean, he’s eighteen and the island is self-contained. Whatever he’s hiding, it’s probably not dangerous.”

“Probably not,” Daichi agrees.

The horse in the stall at Suga’s back snorts, the breath rustling his hair, and he jumps. Grinning, Daichi moves to the other side of the mare, so he meets Suga’s eye over her withers. Suga clears his throat and attempts to recover some poise. “Do you think we can assume, if he’s dropped out of training, he won’t go picking fights with Nichitatsu? Our problem would be solved.”

Daichi’s smile peters out. “Maybe…”

“What?”

“It’s only, with that crossbow, I thought I might actually… let him fight.” Suga raises an eyebrow, and Daichi’s nose scrunches up in reply. “I know that is the exact opposite of what I said—”

“The complete and total opposite,” Suga confirms, hiding a grin behind his hand. Daichi keeps on pouting and waves the curry comb dismissively at Suga.

“The bow’s range isn’t great, but he can still stay away from the center of the fights, all right? I never thought we’d get another archer, it could change our entire strategy.”

Still biting back a little delighted smile, Suga takes a tentative step toward the mare, who glances at him with a huge brown eye. “So will you ask him to come back to training?” He reaches out, in the way he’s seen Daichi show children: palm flat beneath the horse’s nose, letting her sniff him.

“I don’t know. I did try to persuade him, but he seemed so set.” Daichi pulls away a particularly matted swath of hair off and scrapes it off his hand into the pail. “I’m concerned if I tell him I plan to let him fight, the pressure will spook him.”

“You sound like you’re talking about one of these guys,” Suga says, with a nod to the horse. The mare’s breath warms his hand.

“Yeah,” Daichi murmurs, his gaze going unfocused. Suga frowns at him.

“Is there something else?”

Daichi flinches, snapping out of it. He seems done with his grooming work, and Suga steps back to let him untie the mare. “What do you think of the weather lately?” he asks slowly, careful; a leading question. Suga glances out the end of the barn aisle, where it’s sunny and clear. 

“Nice?”

“Hot and not a lot of rain, right?”

“Yes?” He supposes it’s true, they haven’t had much rainfall this spring, though it’s the wet season. Scowling, Daichi leads the mare into her stall and slides the door shut.

“The horses have been nervous lately. Something’s off. I think there might be a big storm coming.”

Oh. When he turns back to Suga, the look on his face shares his bone-rattling worry. He’s not wrong to be concerned—they’ve had their share of bad storms, what with Karasuno sitting out from the larger islands, but experience can only assuage a little of the devastation a typhoon might cause. “Thank you for sharing that concern with me,” he manages, putting on a brave face. Best not to seem shaken by the news, though by the looks of it Daichi sees right through him. “I’ll talk to Kiyoko and check on our storm preparedness. She usually has a good feeling for how everyone is fairing.”

Daichi nods, and gives him a bow; he looks puzzled when Suga bows back. It is sweet, and somewhat frustrating, how much stock this man places in meaningless hierarchies.

“I’ll keep an eye out for clues about Hinata’s motivation for dropping out, too,” Suga tells him, as Daichi grabs a broom to sweep the aisle.

“Maybe the storm will shake some sense into him.”

“Maybe,” says Suga, smiling weakly. He watches Daichi start to sweep and feels a pang of disappointment that he has to go back to the dark confines of his shop, and spend the remainder of the day brewing sleep draught, which ironically is just interesting enough to put a person to sleep. He would rather stay here and look on as Daichi cleans and curries and mucks, and perhaps they’d talk a little, but he’d feel comfortable even in silence.

The motion of Daichi’s sweeping slows. “Do you think…”

“Mmhph?” asks Suga, starting at the sound of a voice—he had been staring, he realizes. Daichi turns to address him.

“I wonder if Kageyama has something to do with it.”

“With…”

“Hinata leaving training. He’s been vicious about it, maybe Hinata finally felt discouraged enough to quit.”

Suga considers this for a moment, thinking of everything he knows about Hinata, and finds himself laughing. “No, if anything, I think Kageyama would be his reason to stay.”

* * *

“That storm looks bad,” Kageyama remarks, staring at the dark mass of clouds hovering out on the horizon. 

“Kinchan! Please! _Come_ ,” Hinata tries, for what must be the twentieth time in an hour.

Dragons are not housepets, for all their leaping and purring and playing fetch. They are too smart to do tricks, which is why Kinboshi stopped humoring him after his third request for her to sit. 

Now she’s parked it and won’t budge no matter how hard he pleads, giving him a look that screams _I love you, but this is ridiculous_. This is the fourth day in a row their would-be classroom session has come to a skittering halt like this; Kageyama lost interest after observing smugly for the first while (Haizora sitting nearby with an identical expression) and now it seems the weather interests him more than the “training” he demanded to see. Though, in all fairness, Hinata had been the first one to use that word, training—he hadn’t even considered that it’s impossible to train when there’s nothing you’re training _for_.

“You listen to me,” he tells the dragon, unable to keep his voice from cracking. “I know you understand. I know it’s silly to just do commands and things, but we have something to prove.” He gestures vaguely at Kageyama (eyes still glued to the horizon), and the dragon assesses their audience for a moment, before lying down with a sigh. Hinata groans.

“We should think about heading back in soon,” Kageyama calls. “I don’t want to get caught in the rain.”

“Why’re you scared of a little rain?” Hinata barks in response, still focused on Kinboshi. Kageyama turns back to them with a glare.

“I said, the storm looks _bad_. More than a little rain. It’s not like you’re getting anything done out here.”

“ _Hey_.” He points at Kinboshi again, then slaps his knees. “Come, Kinboshi! Come to me!” The single disinterested orange eye that had been watching him falls closed, and Hinata kicks at the dirt. This is useless—he knows Kinboshi _can_ do it, but she has no reason to do it, no goal. He tried treats at one point, but she quickly figured out that if she waited him out he’d give her the fish anyway, because he didn’t want to carry it home. Plus, Kageyama gave him a lot of shit for sneaking from the storehouse again.

“That’s embarrassing for you,” Kageyama says, matter-of-factly, and Hinata glares at him, though his disdain isn’t quite severe. Kageyama doesn’t have it in him to be genuinely derisive, Hinata is learning. He doesn’t have Tsukishima’s sense of irony: Kageyama’s meanness springs from his demanding standards and a total absence of filter. He doesn’t always get jokes, sarcasm is difficult, and he tends to say the first thing that pops into his head—in a way, he and Hinata share a fundamentally earnest core, even if that earnestness expresses itself differently in their personalities. He can still be scary sometimes, but Hinata grows less intimidated and more amused with each interaction they have. Perhaps the most frightening thing about Kageyama, right now, is how much he knows. 

Defeated for the day, Hinata leaves Kinboshi to plunk down near Kageyama’s rock. He might be right about the storm, since the wind has started to pick up, but the worst of it looks half an hour away still. “Say, you’re the one who needs to see to believe,” he says, nudging Kageyama’s leg with his foot. The other boy shifts away from him. “What do I have to show you before you’re convinced that I’ve got this?”

“Dunno,” Kageyama grunts, arms folded over his chest. “You just said you could train them. Why can’t you like, yell ‘fire’ and then they’ll breathe fire?” The use of _they_ here concerns Hinata a little, and he can almost feel Haizora looking at him, wondering if he’ll correct Kageyama’s expectations.

“I don’t want to teach them to breathe fire,” he announces instead. “I’m not going to teach them to attack people. They’re not war machines.” Hinata flops back and watches the cloud cover start to thicken.

“If you can teach them to breath fire on command, you can teach them to stop breathing fire on command, can’t you?” He peeks up; this is the first time he can remember Kageyama offering any kind of constructive advice. Uncertainty gleams in the other boy’s face, as though he had caught himself by surprise, too. His eyes fall to the katana’s long scabbard at his side. “Knowing how a weapon works isn’t just about using it, it’s about stopping other people who want to use it, too.”

“Right.” That sounds familiar, the premise of some _bushido_ teaching he’d overheard. “But I still don’t want to think of them as weapons.” Kageyama sighs noisily, dissatisfied with this, but Hinata staunchly ignores him and glances back at the storm. Which is… bigger. “Huh, that thing is moving fast.”

Kageyama follows his gaze, and his eyes bulge. “We should really start heading back.”

Hinata is about to agree when Kinboshi squawks and rushes him, kicking at him with her paws (about the same size as his head), and he scrambles to his feet.

“What’s she doing?”

“Uh, I think she wants me to get moving?”

“Me too.” Kageyama leaps up and starts moving out but something is strange, to Hinata—he’s been caught in rainstorms up here before and Kinboshi has never complained, once even letting him wait it out under her wing. Yet here she is, butting him in the direction of the path.

“What’s going on?” he asks her, but the dragon just keeps nudging him around the lake, Kageyama surging ahead. Haizora slinks after them, and Hinata realizes that they’re being escorted out by the creatures, who normally don’t leave the alcove except to hunt. He stops fighting Kinboshi and trots after Kageyama, with the two dragons tailing them. The light drains from the sky by the second and the wind picks up again.They still have a twenty five minute trek back to the village, half of it on winding mountain paths, many straying just a few feet from sheer drops into the sea. Hinata’s pulse quickens, palms sweating in the increasingly humid air. The smell of the storm is strong, almost nauseating. It’s the smell that suggests something is wrong, that this is no ordinary deluge speeding toward them. 

They move fast, Kageyama with his long strides and Hinata with natural speed, and the dragons have no trouble keeping up, but they can’t beat the rain—he hears Kageyama swear up in front as the first drops start to fall. An overcast daylight has bled into twilight darkness, now, and with a glance up he sees lightning streak the clouds. Shit. A few more drops of rain, and the sky opens up.

Hinata hasn’t felt a downpour like this since he was seven and they experienced their worst typhoon in decades; it falls so hard and fast he’s nearly blinded, and the wind slants it into their faces, so even when he can see he struggles to keep his eyes open. The air billows around them, dipping in the loose folds of their clothing—one gust balloons his haori and he lifts an inch off the ground, until he feels something jerk him back down by his obi—Kinboshi, her wings and ears pinned to her body, following a foot behind.

Kageyama has no such anchor, and it fills Hinata with dread when he makes out the other boy pushing further ahead, where they might conceivably lose sight of each other. “ _Kageyama_ ,” he screams, but eerily he can’t even hear the noise come out of his mouth; it’s gobbled up by the roar of the storm in his ears. He tries to close the distance between them instead, only to find himself being dragged back to the ground by Kinboshi again. Fuck being small.

As he’d feared, he loses Kageyama around a corner, screaming his name again to no avail; he hurries as best he can without blowing away, occasionally putting a hand on Kinboshi to steady himself. Haizora has vanished in all of this, or maybe he’s right there, but Hinata doesn’t want to risk pausing to check. He finally makes it around the corner where he last saw Kageyama and exhales in relief to lay eyes on the other boy’s tall dark shoulders again—very temporary relief, it turns out, as it hits him that they’re on a section of the path cut along a vertical drop, and that said section of the path is slowly sliding toward the sea hundreds of feet below.

The slide, muck and rock, width of a rice field, shakes the still-firm ground beneath Hinata’s feet; Kageyama turns, to backpedal and escape it, but the giant slick of earth catches the rocks where he stands and he falls forward for a painful fraction of a second before tumbling backwards, over the cliff.

This time he does hear himself scream—so loud and fierce is the noise, it wails above the wind.

Something streaks past his eye but he doesn’t register it before lurching forward, reaching to grab at the air that a moment ago belonged to Kageyama’s body, solid and alive. _Alive, alive_. _No more dying_ , he thinks, as the slide takes his own footing and he follows Kageyama down, lungs aching with shouts—the cliffside whips by and the rocks below grow larger and he flies toward a wet oblivion, and he doesn’t have room for fear while his last precious seconds of thought boil over with the realization he has let someone die, again.

Somewhere on the way down, he stops wanting to see. And there’s black.

Then, like the bloom of a tiny planet, his own personal earth, the void beneath him solidifies and he’s tugged out of the freefall. 

He’s not dead, he’s… the wind tugs at Kinboshi’s wings and she squeals, the sound shaking her body beneath him. His arms wind around her neck, and he swallows, working up the courage to open his eyes. He’s not dead, he’s on a dragon.

Flying into the middle of a raging supernatural storm.

He regrets opening his eyes, a little, but can’t bring himself to close them again either. With some difficulty Kinboshi is flapping through stewing black clouds, dotted with swirls like hungry mouths, waiting to chew them up and spit them out. She hasn’t flown in weeks and he can feel her straining to keep control against the force of the gusts, gusts that churn the sea below and carry the spray, so he feels the salt water sting his face in combination with the rain. He’s drenched at this point, and it is dark, so dark, darker than night, everything in shadow and the only light allowed to seep through is so that you might better witness the terror around you.

But another light edges through the dense spinning clouds: a strong blue glow, not too far away, a familiar shape. Kinboshi’s neck grows warm beneath him, and he realizes she’s started to glow, too—the same light she gave off at that daybreak before he met Haizora, beautiful and yellowish white and potent. The magic scratches at him, now that he is touching her in the midst of this process, but he doesn’t feel the dizziness from last time. No, now he’s more awake than he’s ever been, maybe, some unknown corner of his brain rustled into awareness, like he is using more of himself. He could trace the rhythm of his own heartbeat down to its tiniest palpitations, he could tell you the number of hairs on his arms, all standing on end.

As her glow strengthens, Kinboshi’s flight grows stronger too, and they steadily surge forward, slicing through the angry weather until they’re flying parallel with the blue glowing shape—Haizora. It must be. Hope springs up at the bottom of Hinata’s chest, that if Kinboshi had grabbed him, maybe—but he’s distracted when Kinboshi opens her mouth and a violent ringing stamps the air, making him clamp a hand to one ear and press the other into Kinboshi’s neck.

The dragon’s mouth stays open and a second ringing laps over hers, coming from Haizora’s direction. His grip around the dragon’s neck brings Hinata close enough to her jaws that he feels the condense heat building in them, as though she were pressure cooking something.

That something is a ball of fiery light, he learns, when the orb—about the size of his sister—streaks out of her mouth and ahead of their flight path, mirrored by an identical blue mass shooting away from Haizora’s distant glow. The two flying fists look like they’re made of the same translucent raw magic as the dragons themselves, and they barrel ahead, slamming into each other.

Combined, the orbs merge and bloat into a single clear sphere, blue and yellow light churning on its surface like diaphanous gases at the surface of the sun; the sphere sits for a moment, illuminating the center of the storm, then punches a hundred feet wider and taller, clearing the violent black clouds around it as in the wake of a gunpowder blast.

“That is so cool, Kinchan,” he shouts in the dragon’s ear, and she tosses her head as they zip toward the sphere. He’s nervous when they pass through the outer shell of light, but it only slathers him in a bodily, mouth-watering heat, which is fantastic and strange, and another adjective he can’t quite name, but that leaves him a little embarrassed and grateful once it’s passed. 

In the sphere there’s no wind or rain. His clothes are clinging to his skinny frame, and the dampness would be chilling if not for the warmth of Kinboshi, still lit up like her blood has turned to flame. He clings to her, and glances to his right: as he’d suspected, Haizora soars alongside them, radiating blue, and Hinata’s heart soars to see Kageyama, also hunched over and wrapped around his dragon’s neck. They are _alive_ , and he laughs to himself, because it is such an excellent thing, being alive.

The sphere moves with them as they fly, the storm raging just beyond its protective confines, and Hinata watches the rain and clouds rolling off the barrier as they might against a wall of glass.

Eventually the front of the sphere cuts through the clouds like the bow of a ship and they emerge into clear air. It’s still raining but not violently, and he can see the ocean and the typhoon behind them, but not... _Where’s Karasuno?_ It can’t be in that terrible monster cloud somewhere, that’s impossible, not an entire island—but as he scans the horizon he can’t make out the shape of their home anywhere. _Natsu._ She should know to go to Suga or Kiyoko, if things look bad, and she’ll have to: there is no turning back into that monster. The only visible land is another island, smaller than Karasuno, straight ahead. So that’s where the dragons are taking them.

As the weather gradually clears the sky starts to look _blue_ again—what a freaky storm, being so violent but small. The glow of the dragons fades and with it goes their shield, so as they approach a beach on the little island it’s just him and Kinboshi and Kageyama and Haizora, flying along. He even feels comfortable enough to sit up a little, steadying himself on Kinboshi’s thick shoulders. The sun glints off the green-blue sea below, the water spanning miles in every direction, visible in ways it’s never been before. The wind pins back his hair, rustles all the folds of his soaked clothes and makes him shiver. If he falls, he’ll plummet down a hundred feet, slamming into the rock hard surface of the ocean.

He is flying, he realizes, rather belatedly.

Flying on a dragon.

Tightening the grip of his legs around Kinboshi’s sides, he lets go of her neck, and raises his arms.

“ _Waaaahoooooo!”_

Though the wind in his ears dampens the noise, he hears Kageyama shouting obscenities at him from Haizora’s back as they make their descent toward the shore. He keeps his arms out and whoops and grins and laughs wildly until they’re landing, and he has to throw his hands on her shoulders to keep from being tossed off.

“What the fuck?” comes Kageyama’s voice from down the beach, as he stomps toward them, Haizora on his heels. He’s totally wet and windswept; they must look like quite the pair right now, Hinata thinks, doing his best to dismount Kinboshi gracefully, but landing on his ass in the sand.

“No hands!” he explains happily, clambering to his feet.

Kageyama doesn’t know what to say to that, or to anything that’s just happened, so once Hinata’s standing and their eyes meet he just looks at the shorter boy and shouts, _“Fuck!”_

Hinata winces, but he can’t stop smiling from his flight. “That was pretty wild, right? I hope everyone back home is okay.”

“Of course they’re not _okay_ , that’s the kind of storm that kills people.” That squelches Hinata’s delight a bit. He glances back at the horizon, where the storm is a black square wedged between sea and sky. He thinks maybe he can spy the edge of Karasuno sticking out from behind it, but it’s hard to say.

“We can’t go back there right now, though.”

“No, we can’t,” Kageyama agrees gruffly, and he stomps away from Hinata, down the beach, not toward anything in particular. Haizora follows him—Hinata catches the black dragon’s eye, and his mouth pops open.

“Kageyama-kun!”

“ _What?_ ” shrieks Kageyama, collapsing to sit cross-legged on the beach, everything about his demeanor ringing melodramatic.

“Haizora saved you.”

Kageyama goes quiet, his tongue and motions alike. His gaze stays trained on the typhoon, but he doesn’t seem to be seeing it, not really. He’s seeing something else, maybe the freefall—cliff and rocks and no will to panic, not without control. “I know. I was there.”

“He likes you,” Hinata points out, smile creeping over his face, as the black dragon plunks down near Kageyama protectively.

“I don’t know about that,” Kageyama snorts, but his eyes travel to examine his large, scaly shadow.

Hinata edges toward the two of them, sharing a speculative, hopeful look with Kinboshi. “But he touched you. He won’t let me touch him.”

“That was under duress.”

“Try to touch him now.”

Kageyama’s head snaps around to glare at Hinata. “What are you talking about?”

“Just give him a pat!” He’s biting back the biggest grin, since he can tell Kageyama finds his enthusiasm suspicious. It’s only a little self-serving, Hinata’s desire to see another dragon-human friendship find its feet—both for his own purposes (not getting ratted out) and for the greater good (ending their war with dragons), he wants Kageyama and Haizora to trust each other.

Speaking of Haizora: his cobalt eyes size up Hinata distrustfully, but it only means he gets to his feet and slinks closer to Kageyama, who slowly careens his head to stare at the nearby creature, gaping.

Kageyama raises a hand, shaking like Hinata has never seen his hands do before, and lays his palm against Haizora’s shoulder. The dragon turns to look at him and Kageyama recoils, frightened, but Haizora assesses him curiously, and then shoves his nose against Kageyama’s arm.

Another whoop bubbles out of Hinata as he throws his arms in the air. “You’re friends! It’s amazing!”

“Shut up,” Kageyama shoots back, but without much venom, distracted to find himself petting Haizora’s dark nose. He and the dragon stare at one another and Hinata can see it happening again, what went on with him and Kinboshi. _I’m not an exception. This is possible for everyone._ “Hinata,” Kageyama breathes, finally turning away from Haizora. New resolve and seriousness cloud his face. “What happened in that storm?”

He sinks into the sand on his knees, frowning. “Are you gonna be mad if I say I don’t really know?”

“Yes!”

“Then get mad, I guess. I mean,” he adds at Kageyama’s scowl, “I know it was some kind of spirit magic, because Kinchan and Haizora are soutai.”

“Soutai,” Kageyama echoes.

“Yeah, remember when—”

“I remember. I knew you were listening for a reason.”

“Yeah,” Hinata mutters, chewing his lip. In the lull, they both end up staring at the storm on the horizon, which shows no signs of fading or moving.

“So,” Kageyama sighs. “Any idea where we are?” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- my japanese is nonexistent but i needed to create names for things... so if you see any romaji word and think "christ that's horrendous," please let me know. it might be too late to change but i want to be aware of what horrendous things i am doing. EDIT: if you read this chapter within the first 12 hours it was posted, kageyama's dragon was named "haisora"; ao3 user rkemy helpfully pointed out that it should be "haizora," and so that change has been made, and i'm extremely grateful! that's exactly the kind of mistake i want to avoid.
> 
> \- most of the lore around spirit magic in this fic is of my own invention. i needed a way to describe spiritual matching without appropriating from any faith, so i made up soutai. the names of the dragon species are taken from particular dragons in asian folklore, but other than that they are, again, of my own invention. that's just a disclaimer!
> 
> \- kagehina's arc in this fic mirrors their arc in canon thus far, which means i'm starting from the bottom. in this chapter you can see them becoming slightly more civil. slow build, man.
> 
> okay, that's my schpeal. if you have questions, i'm all ears.


	3. taking sides

 

Ukai Keishin stands on the front porch of his family’s farmhouse, arms folded across his chest, glowering out at the fields he and his ancestors have cultivated for two hundred years.

“How bad?”

“Well,” sighs Takeda, from his seat on the front steps. “The lower fields are swamped. That’s thirty percent of the harvest gone.” The little man, his overseer and in some senses his lifeline, speaks with unwarranted calm despite the news he’s delivering. “The upper fields are draining better, but we could still lose a portion of those plants.”

“Worst case scenario, then.”

Takeda’s head careens to the side, both of them watching the drenched fields darkly. First the damn Watatsumi, now this. “We lose half the harvest.”

Ukai sighs, lowers his head. _Shit_. “Shit,” he grunts, and then stomps down to sit beside Takeda.

“Shit is right, sir.”

The raging monsoon had pummeled them through the night, but now the sky is cleared to a mockingly bright blue, a beautiful morning when their village lies battered and soaked. He sighs again. _Shit_.

“So what do we do with half a harvest? People are gonna starve.”

Takeda nods, teeth on his lip. “We’re expecting Tanaka-san and Michimiya-san back from the mainland in a few weeks. They can advise us on what mainland harvests have been like, maybe there’s an opportunity for us to buy a little, just enough to get by.”

“And how are we paying for that?” mutters Ukai, rubbing his temples. Rice and fish are all Karasuno has—and now they don’t have either, thanks to this fucking storm, and the way the dragons’ overfishing has left their nets empty lately.

They sit in silence for a moment. A crow flaps down to rest on a tree nearby and caws threateningly at them. In the distance he can make out shouts and activity in the village; at least one of the little thatch houses is missing its roof; some scattered debris floats atop a rice field, the wrecked frame of a washboard, what might’ve been a toy doll. They have cleaning to do, on top of everything else.

“You know,” Takeda offers, lowering his voice in spite of their being alone, “It’s not as if we don’t have friends on the mainland, who would—”

“I’m not going to go looking for donations.” He knows exactly who and what Takeda is talking about, and Ukai feels his jaw tighten at the very suggestion. His family’s estate has stood on its own for too long to beg at the feet of old enemies. “There’s another way to do it,” he adds, defensively, at the little frown Takeda gives him—disapproving of his pride.

“And what way is that?”

“Not sure, but I’ll let you know when I figure it out.” The corners of Takeda’s mouth turn up. Ukai smiles back, even though the gesture feels strange on his face. But Takeda’s eyes catch something on the edge of the field, throwing them out of the moment.

“Here he comes. They come.”

Ukai turns and there is Sawamura, trudging up the path from the village, Sugawara lagging two steps behind. Yesterday in the midst of the storm they’d invited the stable boy into the main house, but he’d refused, insisting he needed to stay with the panicked horses, and the sleepless night shows in the dark circles under his eyes. This morning they’d sent him into the village first thing while they reviewed the damage to the crops, and now he returns grim-faced.

“Ukai-san,” Sawamura calls, lengthening his stride toward the house. Behind him, Sugawara is panting to keep up, his cheeks pink with the exercise and his mud-caked feet bare.

“How’s the village?”

“No casualties, but three homes were destroyed. Including the Tsukishimas.” Ukai winces: the Tsukishima brothers had their last home destroyed, too, in a dragon attack that claimed their only surviving relative. “Thankfully, we’ve got a few empty places, so we can put roofs over their heads.”

“Have you organized a clean-up effort?” Ukai asks, glancing between Daichi and Suga. Funny how the two of them have become Karasuno’s leaders, with Ukai himself busy on the farm. They’re young to have so much responsibility, too young really, but there isn’t anyone else. The older generation got themselves killed trying to defend the younger—they have to hope this pattern doesn’t continue, or there’ll be no one left in ten years. _Though maybe that’s for the best_ , Ukai thinks glumly. This island might as well be cursed.

“We’re starting on it, yeah. Yamaguchi and his kid are out assessing the damage, and—I’m sorry, sir,” Daichi exhales. “There’s just—one thing.” Suga puts a hand to his face, grimacing in preparation for something, and Takeda sits up. “Hinata and Kageyama.”

“Ah, fuck, what now?” is the first thing that escapes Ukai’s mouth. Sawamura has been relaying the boys’ increasingly strange behavioral difficulties to him over the past few weeks—normally he wouldn’t give a shit how two teenagers he rarely interacts with get along, but Kageyama is a special case.

“They,” and Daichi gives Suga a significant look, “are missing.”

“ _Missing?_ ” Ukai chokes. Takeda’s head drops into his hands. “You _lost them?_ ”

“Sawamura-san didn’t lose anyone,” Suga laughs, awkward. He steps forward to defend Sawamura, but the obviously panicked cadence of his voice does him no favors. “It’s just, we can’t find them anywhere, and Tanaka-san was saying he thought he’d seen them head into the forest together just as the clouds were gathering, _so_ —”

“We fucking lost Kageyama,” Ukai groans, slamming his foot against the porch. Suga jumps at the noise. “No offense, Sawamura, but we need that kid. For a lot of reasons.”

“Kageyama can handle himself,” Daichi tells them. He seems to grow calmer in the face of everyone else’s debilitating concern. “And Hinata should be fine if they’re together. I’m sure they’ve just gotten stuck somewhere.”

“A search party, Sawamura,” Takeda instructs weakly, and Daichi nods.

“Right away, yeah.”

Ukai sinks into his seat, muttering. “Lost Kageyama… can’t believe it…” His expression hardening over, Sawamura turns and starts back for the village, which seems to surprise Suga.

“Daichi! Weren’t we…”

“Is there something else?” Takeda inquires with a frown.

“No, I guess not,” murmurs Suga, eyes on Daichi’s back. He gives them a bow, and trots after the other man, leaving Ukai to knock his head into a porch beam over and over again. He doesn’t even bother considering how weird Suga and Sawamura’s relationship looks from the outside, a thought he has nearly every time he sees them together.

“Lost Kageyama! Lost Kageyama, shit.” Kageyama, their most promising fighter, a future _samurai_ , and a—a _fucking_ —fuck, they’re in deep if they don’t find that kid. Rice, fish, and Kageyama are all Karasuno has; they can’t afford to give up their final precious resource.

Takeda turns his face toward the sun, squinting. “Do you get the feeling that there’s something Sugawara and Sawamura aren’t telling us?”

“Yeah, there is,” Ukai grunts, getting to his feet. They’ve got work to do. “And I don’t think I want to know.”

* * *

“ _You_ said we should tell them.”

“I changed my mind.”

“You could have _told_ me!” Suga struggles to pull his left foot out of the sucking mud vat where he’d accidentally stepped as they return to the village—of course, most of Karasuno is a sucking mud vat right now. He has no idea how Daichi can walk so easily, but somehow he keeps marching ahead of Suga. “Can you please slow down!” he shouts at the receding figure, voice going a little shrill. “Not all of us have iron thighs, thank you!” He exhales to see the other man stall, and turn back to him. The day’s tension and stress have knit Daichi’s brows together, and it’s not even ten o’clock.

“It was a spur of the moment decision,” says Daichi, wading back in his direction; every step pops at the mud’s suction, but he doesn’t lose a fraction of his speed. It makes Suga whimper, and not just because he’s sinking into the earth. “I know it’s not what we decided, so I’m sorry for catching you off guard. But.” Daichi’s closer now but he doesn’t stop moving toward Suga, and Suga gasps to find himself suddenly being hoisted up by the waist—freeing his foot with another _pop_ —and he instinctively wraps his arms around Daichi’s neck to find his balance. It’s not until Daichi speaks and he feels hot breath on his cheek that he realizes he’s being carried, hoisted on a hip, along the muddy path. “Ukai was angry about Kageyama enough as is,” Daichi continues, a hitch in his voice the only sign of exertion. “I didn’t want to cause more problems when we don’t even really know what’s going on.”

“I mean—that’s—we know…” Suga strains to remember what they were even talking about, what with the screaming voice in his head alternating between _please fucking put me down right now_ and _please carry me around forever_. This is important, he should be focusing, and not obsessing over the fact that he’s pressed into Daichi’s side, and _feeling_ his strength, and his warmth, and the sheen of sweat on his neck. He is, so strong. Maybe Suga ought to take up riding. Horses, that is. Riding horses. “Th-h… storm,” he manages, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Was supernatural, I know,” Daichi sighs, as if nothing were out of the ordinary. “I’m not sure what it’s worth to tell Ukai that this wasn’t a normal monsoon when we have no clue what it _actually_ was.”

“Y-h… uh.”

“And with Kageyama and Hinata missing on top of the problems with the harvest and the repair efforts, he’s busy.”

“Nnh, heh!”

“We’ll have to investigate this ourselves.”

“Yes, ha, uh, let’s investigate!” 

They reach higher ground just outside the village, and Daichi lowers Suga a few inches back to the earth. Still muddy, but not threatening to swallow him whole. He keeps an arm on Daichi’s shoulder, because he’s afraid otherwise he might faint, and Daichi reaches out to help steady him. Which really improves the situation! Great!

“You seemed like you were having some trouble,” says Daichi, smiling through what’s clearly a great deal of concern about other things, which only makes Suga feel worse that the most coherent emotion running through him right now is _anger_ at whatever _this_ is, whatever thing is happening to him, making him stare at the line of Daichi’s jaw, making his heart race and his palms sweat but… not in a bad way. He _is_ worried about Hinata, and Kageyama, and the food and the houses, but he is also worried about how red his face must be right now. Suddenly Daichi’s shoulder burns hot under his palm, and he jerks his hand away. It’s hard to tell whether or not the other man registers what’s going on, if he even notes something amiss. 

“Um, well. Thank you, Daichi. Sawamura-san,” he coughs, smoothing his clothes ineffectually. “I think—I mean, I’m sure you’re right. I will… keep trying to figure out what the storm was.” Yesterday, as the air pressure dropped, the potions lining the walls of the apothecary started to churn in their jars, and the Watatsumi pelt he’d been drying _glowed_. Magic reacts to magic, he knows, and in twenty-four-ish years of facing monsoons he’d never seen behavior like that. Which could only mean the storm carried some kind of spirit—and not a faint blushing spirit, if the damage is any indication. His first response to the incident was, _I have to tell Daichi_. So he’s worried about that, too—the incident, and the response. He might just explode, if they’re not careful.

“I appreciate that,” Daichi offers warmly. So many people say platitudes like _I appreciate that_ and they sound empty because they are, but not Daichi; his gratitude rings genuine, like everything else about him. Suga swallows.

“Of course. That’s my job. Sort of.”

Daichi nods and Suga spies his gaze shifting toward the village square, just visible between the buildings. “I really ought to get going on that search party.”

“Should I come along?” Suga asks, too eagerly maybe. He tries to suck in some excitement. “If you need medical help. Kiyoko’s probably doing a better job with the clean-up organization than I could.” 

He gets a curious squint in reply, but ultimately Daichi shrugs. “You’ve got a point. But I can’t carry you through the mountains, okay?” Suga laughs so hard and awkwardly that Daichi jumps in reply, and so Suga laughs more to cover it up, until Daichi is smiling in what’s hopefully endearment and not derision. Suga feels more than a little ridiculous about this entire encounter. “Well, uhm,” Daichi manages, grinning and looking beyond baffled. “We meet by the forest entrance in twenty, how ‘bout?” Suga nods, finally not laughing like he downed a madness draught, but still winded. Daichi gives him a last curious look, lingering more than the ruckus in Suga’s stomach would like, then shuffles off with a wave. The little smile he tosses over his shoulder squeezes a whimper from Suga’s throat.

“Oh no,” he sighs, watching Daichi go for a moment, and then he drags himself back to the apothecary.

* * *

“Is just me, or does this place look kind of terrible?” Hinata asks, shoving a fallen tree branch out of his path. 

He doesn’t get a response from Kageyama, who is picking his own way through the forest on this small nameless island. The trees are weathered, some cracked and bent out of shape, and he keeps stepping into puddles. 

“Do you think that storm started here?” he calls ahead again, still to no response from his gloomy companion. Hinata pulls a face at Kageyama’s broad back; it’s perfectly in line with his luck lately that he’s stuck on an island with Kageyama Tobio, of all people. No food, no fresh water, no crossbow, just Kageyama and his katana, which he clings to now after nearly losing it in the storm. Hinata huffs, blowing his bangs out of his eyes.

“We need to find somewhere dry to make camp.” Ah, finally. Kageyama blesses him with the privilege of speech! Not that he bothers to look at Hinata when he says it, but whatever, baby steps.

“Sure. Let’s do that. I hope Kinchan and Haizora can find us all right,” Hinata says under his breath, and somehow for all his silence Kageyama hears _that_ , and he snorts _._

“It’s hilarious how you trust those things to bring us food.”

“One of those _things_ saved your life.”

“Yeah, saving my life and doing my errands are two very different propositions.”

“It’s not an errand,” Hinata seethes, having to untangle his sleeve from a bramble. Kinchan isn’t his servant, they’re _allies_ , and the dragons fish more efficiently than them—maybe it’s too much of him to expect Kageyama to understand the concept of teamwork. Like asking Natsu to understand bushido, or Tsukishima to understand being nice.

Natsu… he finds himself chewing his lip. The storm showed no signs of stopping when they left the beach, and nightfall is only a couple of hours away. “She’s going to kill me,” he mutters. Maybe she wouldn’t be so bad with bushido after all.

“Who’s going to kill you?”

“Your hearing’s pretty selective, huh, Kageyama-kun?” Kageyama doesn’t respond, as if to prove his point. “I meant my little sister.”

“Oh. Right… that one.”

Hinata makes a rude gesture at his back. “Her name is Natsu.”

“You ought to be firmer with her,” Kageyama announces, slicing through a vine with his katana, and Hinata’s nose wrinkles. 

“What do _you_ know—”

“You’re her parent and you let her boss you around.”

“I’m not her _parent_ ,” Hinata snorts.

“If not you, then who?”

He pauses in the middle of clambering over a fallen log to stare at the tall dark shape of Kageyama. Him, Hinata Shouyou, eighteen years old, a parent. A few nights ago he tried to brush Natsu’s hair with the comb from Kiyoko-san and got it stuck, and she’d cried as he fought to remove it. _Parent._ That word settles heavily on his shoulders. It smacks of responsibility, and guilt. “Where are we going, anyway?” he calls, falling back on the probability that Kageyama doesn’t really want to spend more than a minute or two discussing his family troubles.

“I told you, to find a campsite.” The other boy finally turns to face him, pointing his katana… somewhere? “The center of the island is most likely to be higher ground. That’s where I’m taking us.” Hinata squints as far as he can see in that direction, but he makes out nothing beyond the green. And he thinks he’s heard the ocean starting to get loud again.

“You sure about that?”

“Of course I’m sure. Dumbass.” Kageyama gives him a characteristically nasty look and marches onward, and Hinata follows. 

About thirty seconds later they emerge on to the beach. Hinata laughs wildly. Kageyama sticks his katana into the sand with a roar that would be frightening, if he weren’t an idiot. 

“So what now?” Hinata wheezes, hands on his knees. “You gonna navigate us to the moon?”

“Shut up! We’ll have to start looking again.”

Hinata’s giggles turn to groans, and he collapses on the beach. This is boring, walking in circles, getting alternatively ignored by Kageyama and interrogated about his personal life. He misses Kinchan.

“What’s that?”

He raises his head to follow Kageyama’s gaze: at the end of the beach is a little bay, where the narrow shore curves along a tall stony cliff face; both the beach and the water eventually continue into a gaping hole in the rock.

“A… cave?”

Kageyama has already started striding off, and Hinata scrambles to his feet to keep up. “There’s something weird about that cave,” Kageyama announces, just as Hinata manages to fall in beside him.

“What’s weird, exactly?” Hinata squints at it. They’ve got caves like that on Karasuno, too, and this one doesn’t look particularly large or otherwise remarkable. 

“Hmph,” is Kageyama’s only reply, which makes Hinata more than a little nervous, but he trails his companion along the beach toward the cave. As they approach the shore grows messier—more fallen branches, an uprooted bush somehow dragged down from the treeline, as if the storm had more force here. And there’s a strange smell in the air too, something a little sour, and Hinata has to plug his nose as he peeks around the corner into the cave. Seeing it’s empty, he exhales a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, and Kageyama sheaths his sword. The beach and the water wind further into the earth than the sunlight reaches, but most of the spacious cavern is visible, littered with different debris: variously complete skeletons, including (Hinata notices with a disgusted lurch of his stomach) the half-decayed, half-consumed carcass of an unidentifiable creature.

Hinata’s hands reach out to latch around the loose fabric of Kageyama’s sleeve, but he grabs nothing—Kageyama has already started into the cave, eyes shiny at their discovery. “It’s a nest. A dragon’s lair.” Hinata slinks after him, a bit slower, careful to pick around the endless assortment of bones at his feet. “You can’t even tell what this fucking _was_! A cow, maybe? No, it’s too big...” Kageyama is standing over the huge dead thing toward the back of the cave, sounding delighted in a weird way that makes Hinata not want to go over there and join him, lest he witness Kageyama actually trying to touch the corpse. So instead he scans the rest of the cave, wondering what kind of dragon would have such a large nest. What might be a claw mark on the stone wall is the same length as Hinata’s entire body. He swallows, and keeps moving, but yelps when something sharp brushes the side of his foot.

Supporting himself on the wall, he clamps his hand to the bare skin, which isn’t bleeding but shows a long shallow tear. He must’ve just barely touched whatever it was, but it would need to be _so_ sharp to make fine cut like that—he searches the bones near his feet and his eyes settle on… a giant, circular, spikey tusk. Shaped like a blowfish, but harder and sharper. “Kageyama!” he calls, doing his best to lift the thing (which is just slightly smaller than his head) without stabbing himself. “What’s this?” Holding it from the bottom by a spike, he taps one of the pricklers; he feels a pinch and has to hastily wipe a drop of blood from his fingertip. It’s sharp, all right. Probably sharp enough to punch a hole in Hinata’s side under the right circumstances.

Kageyama, now crouched by the carcass, glances over at him but turns back to his examination right away. “That’s a burr.”

“A burr?”

“Some bigger dragons have them around the bases of their horns,” Kageyama explains, with no conviction or interest, distracted by glowering intensely at the dead thing. 

Hinata imagines how big a horn would have to be to have a burr this size at its base, and he throws it back into the sand. Yikes. “I don’t wanna hang out here, Kageyama-kun.”

“Do you know what this is?” Kageyama asks, ignoring him. 

“Dead? It’s dead?”

“Come over here.” Kageyama beckons him down the beach, where he stays crouched by the body.

“No,” says Hinata quickly, taking a step back. “I can’t.” Twenty paces is as close as he’ll get without wanting to hurl. The smell in this place is bad enough.

“Don’t be a dumbass.”

“I’ll be sick.” 

Kageyama glances back at him, an impatient edge in his voice. “What? I said, don’t be a dumbass.”

“I really will be sick, I’ll throw up, I can’t do the… the blood and rotting stuff.”

“Can’t do—blood, are you fucking serious?”

“It makes me sick!” Hinata wants to stop talking about this, even that makes him distinctly uncomfortable.

“So why the fuck do you even wanna learn swordfighting?” Kageyama snorts, not too preoccupied with the carcass to berate Hinata. 

Hinata blushes under the other boy’s judgmental stare, but his lips move before he can pause to think how stupid it is telling Kageyama, “So I can be a samurai.”

For a brief precious moment he considers that perhaps it won’t be so bad, the response, what with Kageyama having zero sense of irony, far from enough to be capable of teasing him—but then there is the cold, locked certainty in his voice when he says, “That is never going to happen.” Rage surges in Hinata’s throat, and the defense spills out—he manages to step toward Kageyama, even, suddenly blind to anything that isn’t this insult.

“You’re just saying that because you’re jealous, because I can land hits on you and I’ve got no training!”

Kageyama’s lips part, his eyes glint, and as he slowly rises to his impressive height a modicum of fear flickers into existence alongside the anger in Hinata’s belly. But he stands his ground. “Jealous,” Kageyama echoes, somehow suddenly hoarse. “Of you?” 

“Yeah,” Hinata spits back. He isn’t sure if there’s something wrong with him feeling, among a lot of other things, excited—with his pulse racing and Kageyama slinking toward him, and the tension between them clawing at his skin. 

“You know what kind of samurai gets sick at the sight of blood?” Kageyama stalls a few paces from him, his glare now coming from above. _He wanted to look down on me,_ Hinata realizes. “A dead samurai.” Cowed by the cold light in Kageyama’s eyes, Hinata has to look away, instead eyeing the water lapping nearby. 

There’s a familiar roar at his back, Kageyama’s head lifts, Hinata turns to see Kinboshi bounding toward him along the beach with Haizora behind her. 

“Kinchan!”

She immediately starts biting at his clothes and trying to drag him out of the cave, which prompts Hinata to give Kageyama a dirty look. Even stoic Haizora looks a little nervous, circling them and glaring into the depths of the cave.

“See, they want us to get out of here too.”

“Fine,” Kageyama grunts. He leads the way out, with Haizora at his side, and his hand resting easily on the dragon’s head. Hinata smirks; it may be that Haizora is the only dragon Kageyama trusts, right now, but he’s on his way.

Outside the cave, the dragons lead them to a pile of fish they’d caught, and Hinata praises Kinboshi to excess when he catches the vague, surprised annoyance that comes over Kageyama’s expression. And it’s the dragons, too, who lead them into the hilly center of the island—the one that Kageyama couldn’t find—where the ground is bearable for camping. 

So a few hours later, with the sun finally sinking below the horizon, they are sitting opposite one another across a small fire, their bellies warm with plain but filling fish, and Hinata’s limbs tingling nicely like they do at this time of day. It keeps happening, and he’s beginning to suspect there’s something behind it, something to do with his and Kinboshi’s friendship, but it feels more nice than threatening to be linked with a sunset. He can’t complain.

He and Kageyama have been mostly quiet, aside from working out the technical details of their meal and camp. Kageyama has undone his obi and uses it to clean his katana, even long after the blade glistens. Their earlier conversation stays wedged between Hinata’s shoulder blades, an impossible itch to scratch. Nothing Kageyama said was revelation, not really, but to hear it from the mouth of another person… what is he going to be, then, if not a samurai? He can’t die a peasant on a tiny island most people have never even heard of. He keeps searching madly through imagined futures and that one, the vision never materializes. He can’t see it; it can’t be that.

Their camp is high enough that there aren’t many trees and they can see the horizon line over the ocean. Kinboshi and Haizora lay around the perimeter for a while, guarding, but as the sunset grows brighter and the feeling in Hinata’s limbs grows stronger, both creatures sit up and watch the horizon. Kinboshi makes a noise, almost a howl, and Haizora pads over to her. Hinata glances at Kageyama—the other boy is watching too, he notes. Haizora opens his mouth, and huffs out a little glittering blue cloud of light, the color of the rising moon, that settles over Kinboshi’s face for a moment before dissolving; the orange dragon purrs and brushes her nose against Haizora’s neck.

“What are they doing?” Kageyama murmurs over the fire, as though he didn’t want the dragons to hear.

Hinata grins. “They’re just saying hello.” He sorts through the grass near his seat and finds a little twig. “They’re the day dragon and the night dragon, so I think their magic bond thing gets stronger when it’s half-day, half-night.” He’s been dwelling on this since he first witnessed Kinboshi waiting for daybreak to call Haizora. Doing his best to imitate Suga, Hinata takes the twig in his fingers and scratches the first few strokes of _dragon_. 

He feels Kageyama looking between him and the dragons, trying to decide which phenomenon is more worth his attention, and Hinata’s grin broadens. “So… if Kinboshi is the Nichitatsu, the Sun Dragon, then what is Haizora? Are they the same… I don’t understand.”

“I dunno,” says Hinata happily. Kageyama narrows his eyes. “I think maybe we got it all wrong. Maybe some Nichitatsu just look like Haizora, or maybe they’re different kinds from the same family.” The two dragons might know they’re being talked about, but they don’t seem interested. Instead, they go about setting up a bed for themselves, breathing a little fire at the ground in tandem and then curling up in the charred spot. Their tails twist together, Kinboshi lays her head over Haizora’s back.

“Toru… Yorutatsu?” Kageyama tries. The Night Dragon, sort of. Hinata shakes his head.

“That's not right. Your Japanese is awful.”

“Shut up!"

“Anyway, why does it matter? Haizora is Haizora.”

Kageyama shrinks a little, and turns his attention back to the katana in his lap. “I’ve never seen a dragon like him before.”

“Before Kinboshi, no one had ever seen a Nichitatsu. Now I don’t even know if there are other Nichitatsu, or if it’s just Kinboshi.” Hinata glances at the colors under the moon, the purple and fiery yellow, and breathes in the sunset. “I think we might need to forget everything we think we know about dragons.”

That lifts Kageyama’s head, as though it flipped a switch. “Right.”

Hinata assesses the kanji he’s drawn: it’s barely recognizable. He sticks his tongue out at it and rubs the dirt clean, then starts over.

“That thing in the cave.” Oh, good: Hinata’s stomach churns at the mention. “It was a dead dragon. A Kuma-wani, I think,” Kageyama says softly.

“So?”

“So, dragons fight and kill each other sometimes. But they don’t hunt each other.” Hinata looks up from his writing, to see Kageyama glowering at the dying center of their fire, his face yellow but his hair backlit by the moonlight, glowing blue and gold.

“But that was a dragon’s lair…”

“Yeah, it was. And a fucking big dragon, too, judging from what it did to the Kuma-wani. And you can tell it’s been eating everything in sight. We know where all the fish have gone, now.” Kageyama kicks at the fire, stoking the embers. 

“It could’ve been a fluke,” Hinata offers weakly.

“No. Half the bones in that place were dragons. And there’s the fact that the storm started here.”

Hinata swallows, trying to ignore the way this cuts at his nice magical sunset happiness. “What does that mean, then?”

Kageyama raises his head to meet Hinata’s eye over the fire. “What do you _think_ it means? It means there’s a fucking big dragon eating everything in sight and causing massive storms, and we’re all doomed, probably.”

Hinata sighs, and stabs his twig into the dirt. “You’re so optimistic, Kageyama-kun.” Not that the thought of a dragon like that doesn’t fill him with dread, too. He can still feel the prick of that burr on his finger. “What do we do?”

“What do we do?” Kageyama echoes, head tilting to the side. “The dragon is probably about three times the size of a Watatsumi.” Hinata chokes on nothing. _Three times_ the size of a Watatsumi? “If not bigger.” _Bigger?_ “And it controls the weather.” Kageyama lifts his katana, examining it in the fire’s light. “If Ukai and Sawamura have any sense, they’ll uproot the village to the mainland and resettle.”

“You’re going to tell Ukai-san and Sawamura-san?” Hinata asks, his throat tight. If they know about the big scary dragon, then they’ll want to know how they found out, and then he and Kageyama will have to explain about Kinboshi and Haizora, and somehow he doesn’t feel like the whole they-saved-our-lives argument will be enough to erase hundreds of years of learned fear and caution. Kageyama lowers the sword, shooting Hinata a puzzled look over the fire.

“What, you want to keep it a secret? You, betterment-of-the-village-kun?”

Hinata flushes. “I don’t think we should run away, like _cowards_.”

“It’s not cowardly to— _shut up_ ,” Kageyama says through his teeth. “We’ll all die if we try to take that thing on, no matter how much skill and experience we have. I haven’t got a death wish, all right?”

“We don’t just have skill and experience, though,” Hinata says, leaning forward, the glow surging in him. “We have Kinboshi and Haizora too. This thing has been hunting dragons and people, it’s an enemy in common. It wouldn’t just be us versus the Arashi.” The Storm. Kageyama perks at the cool name. “So… we can’t tell Ukai-san and everyone, not until we know they’ll trust our dragons. They’re our chance.”

His companion considers this for a moment, then shrugs. “I’ll think about it.” Hinata struggles with whether or not to argue—he isn’t very good at leaving things like this alone—but another thought has been nagging him.

“Does this mean that the Arashi was flying somewhere in that mess earlier? Like, right near us?” Even knowing they survived, the prospect is terrifying. He could’ve been meters from death and had no idea.

“I think it’s a sea dragon, mostly. I saw a lot of tracks going in and out of the water when we were in the cave. You need to work on your tracking skills.” Typical Kageyama, never losing an opportunity for constructive criticism. Hinata draws a deep breath, and asks the question that’s really plaguing him.

“So the people on Karasuno are probably safe from it, right?”

Kageyama’s strokes of cloth on katana have dwindled to brushes, like he just wants to move his hands. “Probably.” 

“Probably,” Hinata repeats. He searches the sky for the storm on the horizon: it’s too dark to really make out the shape of it, but he can tell its location by the flashes of lightning. The sunset is nearly gone, and he is sinking out of magic. He looks back, at Kageyama. The shadows and flickering flames from the fire cast the grooves of his cheekbones and neck in long angular shapes, making him look like a bad attempt at painting in perspective. The katana’s blade catches the reflection of the fire and it might be aflame. Without thinking, Hinata starts crawling around their makeshift hearth. “Hey, can I try the katana?”

Kageyama immediately pulls away, holding the sword over his head. “No! What the fuck!” Kind of enjoying how upset this makes Kageyama, Hinata lunges for the hilt, climbing halfway into his lap. “Are you a dumbass? Stop that,” Kageyama cries, the pleas mingling with Hinata’s high-pitched cackle. 

“Lemme try!”

“No!”

“Just for a minute, c’mon—”

“Get the fuck off me!” Hinata’s pretty sure Kageyama is getting a face full of his armpit as he reaches up to grab the sword, and he only cackles harder.

“I’ll get off if you let me try it for a minute!”

“No—” Hinata promptly drops his ass into Kageyama’s lap, a taunt, and he’s about to announce that he’ll sit there as long as it takes to get his way, when the grip of the katana materializes in his palm. “Get off me,” comes Kageyama’s voice, a growl, his head bowed—Hinata flings himself away from Kageyama, just barely landing on his feet, the katana in hand. His mouth is open, probably because he has no fucking clue how the mood changed so fast: one second he’s in a teasing scramble and the next he’s frightened by mere proximity to the other boy, who hasn’t moved, his head still hanging, hiding his face.

“Sorry—”

“Don’t touch me again.”

He stares at the dark figure of Kageyama for a long moment, a strange sensation stirring his chest. _Stuff it away. Forget it_ , he decides, because it feels safer and most comfortable to do so. With some effort he redirects his attention to the sword, to the embroidered leather grip against his hand, and the feather-light blade’s thin weight before him. Granted, he’s held a grand total of two other swords in his life, but this one is _different_ —it doesn’t feel like a weapon as much as an extension of his arm. He slices the air to test and a little _oooo_ escapes him, it’s effortless, no resistance, and the balance… awkward moment forgotten, he beams, and tries a few more swipes, a lunge, imitates a parry. “This thing is amazing,” he hears himself say. So even, like fighting with the smoothness of silk and the sharpness of paper and the power of steel. 

“Of course it’s amazing,” Kageyama scoffs, and once he clears his throat a time or two he looks up and seems to be recovered, partly. Or maybe it’s just the darkness obscuring whatever came over him before—Hinata does feel an anxious twinge when he gets to his feet. “If you’re gonna hold my katana, at least fix your stance.” He stalks toward Hinata, who recoils, but not enough to keep Kageyama from sweeping around behind him. Hands jerk at Hinata’s waist, forcing him sideways, and the rough palms of Kageyama’s hands find his wrists, pulling his grip on the sword upward. “You hold it too low,” Kageyama mutters, but he’s close enough that the words are loud in Hinata’s ear, and for his breath to brush Hinata’s cheek, which makes him shiver viscerally. “Elbows up. Almost above your shoulders. There.” Kageyama steps back, and the void he leaves at Hinata’s back feels strangely vulnerable.

“This isn’t how Sawamura-san showed me,” Hinata says, attempting a move in the new stance. It’s wobbly and a little counterintuitive—his lower torso seems unguarded—but now that he’s thinking about it, it does look and feel closer to Kageyama’s stance, and Kageyama is the best swordsman he knows. 

“Sawamura-san is a good leader, but he’s not a samurai.” Kageyama watches Hinata test the katana, his shoulders tense, prepared to rip it from his grasp should he make a wrong move.

“You’re not a samurai either.”

“But I will be.”

Hinata grits his teeth, and draws a circle with the katana’s tip. “You sound so sure of that.” He researches a lunge. “Anyway, I thought Noya-san was the only one who trained on the mainland, how do you even know this stuff?”

Kageyama doesn’t speak for long enough that Hinata glances back at him and catches a peculiar, sour, twisted expression on his face. When they make eye contact, he flinches and steps in to pluck the katana from Hinata’s hands, saying, “You’re such a dumbass.”

“Hey! I wanted to try with it a little more!”

“I’m going to sleep,” Kageyama grunts, sheathing the katana as he marches back toward the fire. “Tomorrow we have to figure out how to get home.”

“We’ll fly on Kinchan and Haizora,” says Hinata, pulling a face at his stupidity.

Kageyama plops back into his seat with a scowl. “You think they’re just going to let us climb on their backs again.” They turn at the same time to check on the sleeping black-and-gold dragon pile. Haizora snores lightly, liquid moonlight curling in and out of his nostrils.

Hinata smiles, and turns back to Kageyama. “Yes.” He remembers the sensation of flight, the sea sprawled out beneath him, the view of land, the wind so cold and the clouds tangible; if partnering with the dragons might stop the Arashi, flight could be their way to work together. So Kageyama had better get used to climbing on Haizora’s back.

Kageyama stares at him for a moment, then shrugs and starts lying down to sleep. “I hope you’re not fucking touched or anything.” Hinata grins, and returns to his own seat, settling in to watch the fire die.

“Goodnight to you too, Kageyama-kun.”

* * *

When Hinata Shouyou walks into Kiyoko’s shop after having been missing for a day and a half in the midst of the island’s worst storm in years, Natsu squeals.

Kiyoko and Yachi watch their hysterical reunion with smiles—Yachi feels especially relieved, since she had been unable to stop contemplating Hinata and Kageyama’s possible deaths. But there is Kageyama, too, alive and in one piece, and there’s a lot of brouhaha that accompanies their return.

The first question on everyone’s lips is, of course, _what happened to you?_

The boys look at each other. “There was this cave,” Hinata begins.

“Yeah.”

“And we got stuck in the cave.”

“Yeah.”

“So we decided to just wait out the storm.”

“Yeah, yeah. A cave.”

“And then we made it back to the village when the water went down!”

“Yeah… cave.”

When they give this explanation to Sawamura, he stares at them for a long time, then finally shrugs and says, “Well, I’m glad you’re safe.” Hinata smiles brightly at him, and Kageyama stares at the ground. It’s weird, Daichi thinks—he has other questions, like why Hinata and Kageyama were so far out from the village in the first place, and why they hadn’t headed back when they saw the storm rolling in, and why the fuck they were _just hanging out together_ when most days he worries about them biting one another’s heads off—but mostly he’s just happy they’re okay, and that Ukai isn’t going to hang him out to dry, and that things are slowly getting back to normal.

Or, nearly normal.

One day, a week later, Daichi is coming into the stable from the yard and hears voices near the back room, where the feed and equipment is kept.

“This is never going to work.”

He stops short, because that’s definitely Kageyama—he has never known the broody kid to be interested in horsemanship. It seems like the idea of relying on another living creature doesn’t appeal to him.

“You haven’t even given it a try!”

And that… is Hinata. Definitely, Daichi would know his spirited tone anywhere. 

“I’m not saying we shouldn’t try it, I’m here, aren’t I?”

Daichi creeps down the stable aisle, toward the open door to the supply room. He edges forward just enough to peek inside, to see the boys having their argument by the wall of tack. Hinata has a hand on one of the saddles, swaddled in its cloth covering.

“So let’s do it,” Hinata announces, and Kageyama steps toward him, and that’s when Daichi decides to clear his throat.

Both Hinata and Kageyama scream and jump, knocking into the tack stands and barrels of feed, and Daichi has to swallow a barking laugh. 

“What’re you two doing in here?” he asks, too amused to be threatening in the moment.

“N-nothing,” Hinata chokes, clinging to Kageyama’s sleeve.

“I chased him here,” Kageyama declares, flatly. “To beat him up.” To demonstrate, Kageyama swings the arm Hinata is clinging to, sending him into the feed barrel again with a yelp.

“Is that so?” Daichi feels his smile fading. This is a little more lying than he permits, even from a couple of kids. It’s starting to make him nervous, because he doesn’t have a solid lead on what’s really going on. If it were a boy and a girl sneaking off together, or if they’d gotten fireworks in from the mainland, or even if they seemed to _like_ one another, he might have a better guess. But it’s Hinata and Kageyama; they hate each other; something is amiss.

Kageyama lifts Hinata by the scruff of his clothes. “We’re going to go now.” And Daichi watches the two of them try to squeeze by him through the door. They speak in hushed whispers as they head down the aisle and out of the barn. Leaning against the doorjamb, Daichi sighs. He’ll have to keep an eye on that. He has to keep an eye on a lot of things, he thinks, remembering Suga. It’s a pity he’s only got so much attention to spare. 

* * *

“That was too _close_ ,” Kageyama scolds, as they go about fiddling with the straps on the saddle they’d nicked from the stable, on their second (more covert) attempt. “Sawamura is going to know we’re up to something.”

Hinata dismisses him with a wave. “He hasn’t said anything yet, so let’s try to be ready by the time it comes up.”

“What’s ‘the time’? What’s this deadline you’re always talking about being ready for?”

“I’ll know it when I see,” Hinata replies blithely, and he hops to his feet, having successfully undone the saddle’s girth. “Kinchan! Come over here!”

The dragon peeks at them from her usual sunning rock. After the Arashi’s visit, the weather has been unusually clear—Kageyama says he thinks that this is part of the Arashi’s magic, that it sucks up all the bad weather and puts it into one whopping monster storm. The lake is translucent in the bright sunlight, Haizora sits watching them and cleaning his paws. Kinboshi stands on the rock, shakes and leaps down, padding toward them; Hinata offers her the saddle to sniff. It should just barely fit behind the joint of her wings, with a margingale looping around her chest to keep the saddle from sliding back. “This makes it safer for us to fly together,” he tells Kinboshi, ignoring the glare his talking to her gets from Kageyama. It’s weird, he _should_ have something similar with Haizora, but he never talks about it. “Just let me know somehow if it’s uncomfortable.” The dragon gives a light snort. He silently thanks the universe that Kinchan isn’t too much broader in the shoulders than their burly plough horses.

Kageyama hovers behind him as Hinata goes about securing the saddle. “You better hurry. If Sawamura notices it’s gone he’ll know it was us.”

“I left the cloth cover on the rack so he won’t notice unless he really checks, okay?” Hinata is actually quite proud of this little deception, and his idea to take the long way around the rice fields to avoid being seen with the stolen saddle. After so many weeks of sneaking around, he’s finally getting better at the lying game.

“Well, I’m against this whole flying experiment in general, so you take the blame—”

“If we get caught, I know!” Hinata tightens the girth around Kinchan’s belly, and tests its snugness. “Is that okay?” he asks her quietly, and the dragon throws her head. A nod, he realizes, grinning. They really are so _smart_.

Kageyama strides off to join Haizora, the two of them sharing a skeptical, annoyed expression. They make a funny pair, Hinata glances at them and has to hold back a giggle, which of course only makes them both seem confused on top of skeptical and annoyed. _Cute_. The word pops into his head but he doesn’t dwell on it, instead turning back to test one of the stirrups. It should take his weight, so he hops and slips his foot in, then throws his other leg over Kinboshi’s side.

He lands in the saddle with a _thump_ and Kinboshi hisses. Kageyama chimes in harshly, “Haven’t you ever ridden a horse? You’re supposed to lower yourself into the seat.”

“I never got to ride horses, no.” He never missed that experience much—they are big, terrifying creatures to someone his size, which seems like an ironic fear given he’s sitting on the back of a dragon—but now he regrets it a little. He can sense the raw power in the creature beneath him, and he wishes he felt confident in his ability to control it.

“So,” Kageyama deadpans. “How are you going to steer?”

“Steer! Oh!” With Kinboshi looking back over her shoulder at him, Hinata point at his human companion. “I had an idea! So when I first made friends with Kinchan, this weird thing happened at sunset, where she let me pet her for the first time. And ever since then I’ve always felt like I was connected to that time of day, like I get all warm and fuzzy.” He adjusts his seat in the saddle, preparing himself. Kageyama is squinting up at him. “I think Kinchan imprinted on me, or something spiritual like that, and that’s why she understands my speech so well.” Hinata taps the center of his forehead and beams. “So I’m going to steer her with my mind!”

“With your mind?” Kageyama repeats incredulously. He exchanges a pithy look with Haizora.

“Yes. Let’s see.” Leaning slightly forward in the saddle, he tries to do more than think _up_ —he tries to feel it, to see them moving forward together, to—the snap force of Kinboshi’s take-off squeezes a scream from his throat and they are surging into the sky above the cove, Hinata clinging to the saddle’s horn and feeling it lift an inch from Kinboshi’s back and knowing the girth isn’t tight enough. His hair is pinned back by the wind, the air is freezing and raising goosepimples all over his skin, they spiral up and he feels the wet chill of a low-hanging cloud on his face and neck.

Maybe because he has gone from thinking and feeling _up_ to thinking and feeling _please I don’t want to die I’m only eighteen I’ve never kissed anybody_ , Kinboshi levels out her flight pattern and slows, now cruising. 

He pries open eyes that he hadn’t registered closing, and sees her looking back at him, and he can… _feel_ her apology. It isn’t quite speech in the human sense, not in the way he had thought words at her, but a spirit in Hinata’s chest that isn’t his own—the same well of energy he’s felt rising at the change of the sun and moon—whistles, signals its atonement. _We are talking_. _Flying and talking, kind of._ He feels a happy blip from the little bit of Kinboshi’s spirit that’s taken up residence in him: his own little slice of sunshine, he realizes, with a grin. He has the sun inside him. Drawing himself up in his seat, he inhales deeply: the air is clean and cold and good, and the sky and the sea meet in warring blues. Beneath them are Karasuno’s rocky hills, and to the far right is the village, he notes with a nervous flip of his stomach. _Stay away from there,_ he tells Kinboshi, and she veers left toward the sea.

They drop and soar a dragon’s length above the water, then Kinboshi lowers a little more to let her wings skim the tops of the waves, Hinata laughing as the spray of the waves finds him. There is nothing like this feeling, the connection to this incredible creature and the things they can do, together, working this way. As he weaves along the cliffsides on Kinboshi’s back his fear falls away and there is just certainty, that this is the future, if only he could convince everyone else of that.

* * *

It’s weird having a dragon in your head, Kageyama finds.

 _I get all warm and fuzzy_ , Hinata had said, and he didn’t want to disagree—or even to imply that he understood what the other boy was getting at, the spiritual imprinting thing. He wants to call it soutai, but soutai is between two creatures of the same species. He considers that maybe there isn’t a word for what exists between humans and dragons, because one’s never been needed before.

Warm and fuzzy might be it for Hinata, sure; it would make sense, the Sun Dragon and the heat and Hinata’s proclivity toward warm fuzzies. For Kageyama, though, the sensation at the back of his chest is _cool_. Not cold, but cool, like the touch of water on a hot day. It soothes over some feathers perpetually ruffled beneath his skin and lately he finds himself looking at the moon, and at Haizora… affectionately.

It’s been a long time since he felt that. Affection. It’s a sentiment that’s nostalgic, calling back to the years before he came here. He thinks he kind of likes it, in a laidback way. Not enough to go seeking it out, but enough to appreciate when it brushes up against his heart.

He isn’t sure how it is with Hinata and Kinboshi, the way they communicate—he knows it is _some_ way, he was quietly convinced by that first flight where they’d shot up together like an arrow. With Haizora, he finds it more an invisible touch, like he is reaching out to nudge the dragon with his mind; the first time he felt Haizora nudge back, he stopped breathing for a full minute. No flying for them, obviously, because he’s not fucking _crazy_ and that one time with the cliff left him a little scared of heights (read: falling from them), and furthermore he doesn’t want to give Hinata the satisfaction of knowing that he’s in with Haizora as much as Hinata himself is in with Kinboshi. Their bond is different, of course, because _they_ are different, but it’s to the same effect. And he doesn’t want to witness the smug look on Hinata’s little pygmy face should he find out.

But as he grows more conscious of Haizora’s spring of cool spirity water in his head, he grows more conscious of the problems it presents. Mainly, that he spends two or three hours of the day training to _kill_ these animals. They haven’t had a proper attack since the Watatsumi, which means the next one can’t be far off. Even if he _wanted_ to keep his cover and participate in the defense, he’s not sure he could: he can almost feel his arm lock up at the prospect of delivering that final blow, and it’s frustrating. He’s been grinding his teeth a lot lately.

Maybe, though, maybe they have time. Maybe Hinata’s mysterious deadline will arrive sooner rather than later and he’ll come up with a way to convert their fellow villagers. Maybe he’s all worked up over nothing.

But that was always a long shot.

The peace lasts two more weeks. Kageyama is at Asahi’s forge, watching the big guy repair a crack in his katana’s blade (Hinata’s fault probably) while Nishinoya rattles on about the summer festival, and how he wants to put on a performance, and Asahi says he doesn’t think that would be very appreciated, and Noya demands to know who doesn’t appreciate his dancing, does _Asahi_ not appreciate his dancing? Kageyama find himself drifting off at their conversation—it’s the middle of the day, but somehow his connection to Haizora is growing cooler. He can sense the dragon in the mountains somewhere, and then he sees through the creature’s huge blue eyes for a moment, looking up at the sky.

A clang echoes through the streets from the village square.

“Shit, that’s the dragon bell,” says Noya, getting to his feet, tanto drawn.

Asahi lifts the katana, which is flaming red, far from being done. “Kageyama, your sword’s not—”

“Forget it,” he shouts; Asahi dunks the blade in water and leaves it there. It’s lucky they’re in a smith’s shop, because Kageyama grabs the nearest blade he can find and the three of them head out into the street together. 

Standard protocol is to head for the square, and meet by the bell, but they don’t get that far: there is a Mizuchi crouched atop one of the houses not far from the forge, exhaling a wall of fire. Kageyama gets knocked back by a wave of screaming villagers fleeing the area, so by the time he’s got his balance again he’s lost Azumane and Nishinoya in the chaos, though he can hear their voices somewhere in the thicket of nose and flame.

The Mizuchi is a fucking river dragon so he doesn’t even know what it’s doing here, but this one—he sees this in a stranger dragon for the first time—it looks scared. It’s especially long, slender muddy-brown body curled around the roof, and it shoots out another ball of fire, which means pretty soon that house will be—on fire, yep, there it goes. A fire-breathing dragon sitting atop a house engulfed in flames, perfect. An arrow skims the dragon’s head and it roars; Tsukishima must be on the other side of the building. Kageyama feels himself take a step back, not knowing what his hesitance means.

“Hinata!” Kageyama turns to the sound of Sawamura’s voice saying that name. “Have you got your bow!”

“Yes—”

There he is, red hair lit even brighter by the Mizuchi’s flame, so small in this situation that you’d miss him but for its glow. He is backed up against the side of the house next door, his crossbow in his arms, Sawamura clapping him on the shoulder with the hand that’s not brandishing his longsword. They are about to have this fight in a path that’s only slightly wider than most of the alleyways around the village, and they have to choose between being able to see their allies and having the dragon surrounded.

“You’ve got this, Hinata,” Sawamura calls, giving the boy a final encouraging smack before he moves to head around and check on the others. “Shoot that thing!” Their captain dodges to avoid a spray of flame, and then Kageyama can’t see him anymore.

Finally, Hinata notices him. They lock eyes and the terror Kageyama sees in Hinata’s has nothing to do with the Mizuchi sitting atop that flaming house. And worse, it is an _excited_ fear—a fear that’s thrilled and alive and the opposite of cowardly. He makes a dash for Kageyama, who thinks, _Shit, what’s he about?_

“Kageyama, this is it!”

“What?” he shouts back, and then he has to pull Hinata out of the path of a stray arrow, coming from the far side of the building. The arrow’s tip is on fire, and it buries itself in the exterior of the house behind them. Hinata doesn’t even seem to notice, grabbing as he is at Kageyama.

“This is our chance to show them how we can use Kinboshi to defeat the Arashi. It’s time.” _Oh, fuck no_. “I’m going to run into the forest and meet her, I already sent a message—”

Now it’s Kageyama’s turn to grab at Hinata, restraining him with an arm around his waist when the other boy’s clothes slip from his grasp. “That’s a shit idea! They’re going to flip a double shit at two dragons, Hinata!” 

“I _have to_!”

“You haven’t even got a saddle, you dumbass—”

“I’ll tie myself on!” 

“You’re going to ruin everything,” he shouts, right in Hinata's ear, tightening his grip. _He is so fucking stupid, so fucking stupid, I can’t believe_ this _is the guy I’m counting on. But he’s the only one I_ can _count on. So he can’t fuck this up._  

“You’re—wrong—let go of me!” Hinata squeals, and in their struggle his elbow meets Kageyama’s nose—Kageyama feels it crunch and hollers, releasing his wrestling partner to grab at his own face. The blood is already flowing, wet and warm, and it fucking _burns_.

“Shit! You broke my nose, you little shit!” His voice sounds mucky and nasal, the blood obscuring his speech. _Fuck. Fuck._

“I’m _sorry_ ,” Hinata squeals, even higher this time, as he’s half running away, half looking back to check on the damage he’s caused—until he catches sight of the blood, screams and runs away faster.

“Fuck you, Hinata!”

“It’s for the greater good! Sorry!” 

And his stupid little fluffy orange head disappears around a corner, leaving Kageyama alone with an unhappy dragon, a nosebleed and no friends in sight. He swears loudly and turns back to the beast, who must have heard the curse because it’s looking right down at him. He swears again. 

The Mizuchi opens its mouth, a fireball building at the back of its throat like hundreds of flints struck at once, and Kageyama makes a run for where he saw Daichi heading before. He just misses the flames, the tie of his obi coming out singed as it streams behind him, barely escaped. The only thing he can think to do is tell the captain what’s going on, maybe prevent Hinata from getting killed, even if he’s in for a major beating once they find out about Kinboshi. _And Haizora_ , he reminds himself, grimacing. He makes it around the house in time to see Noya climbing Asahi’s shoulders, apparently ready to try their signature move, and he lights on Sawamura in the middle of trying to prevent Noya’s efforts.

“It’s too low still, you’ll never make it,” Daichi shouts, having to raise his voice above the roar of the burning house and the screams of the frightened, cornered animal. _Just fly away, stupid,_ he thinks angrily, and the dragon turns to scream at him, as if replying—but it can’t hear him, only Haizora can, it’d be impossible. Haizora: his sense of the dragon bristles. He must know Kageyama is in danger, now, but as he darts toward Daichi he sends a thought that way: _don’t find me if you know what’s good for you. And stop Kinboshi if you can_. Haizora’s spirit thumps the inside of his head, responding in the affirmative.

“Noya, he’s right,” Asahi cries, pulling the smaller man down. “It’s not going to work when he’s up there, you’ll fall into the fire!”

“I don’t fucking care! That thing is gonna spread, and the storehouse is close to here, we can’t—”

“Nishinoya, shut up! You’re an idiot!” Sawamura jerks him down, his sympathy run out, and Noya lands hard on the ground, rolling. “We’re letting Tsukishima try with the flaming arrows, just wait your damn turn if you don’t want to be killed,” Daichi seethes. Asahi makes to help Noya up but gets shoved away.  

 With Noya’s plot defused, Kageyama finally finds a moment to insert himself into the fray. “Sawamura-san, we’ve got a problem.”

Daichi’s face darkens at the very sight of Kageyama, not where he’d left him. “Shit, what happened to your face? Where’s Hinata?”

“He’s—he’s gone to—uh...”

“Spit it out!” snaps Noya, getting to his feet.

“He’s going to fight it with another dragon.”

_Fuck._

All Daichi’s distraction melts away. His face opens into astonishment and confusion and fear. “What?”

“Hinata has a dragon and he’s going to bring it here and fight that—thing with it and—he’s going to get himself fucking killed, I don’t know—”

“I’m sorry, he _has a dragon_?”

“A Nichitatsu! The one he shot, he didn’t kill it, he made… friends with it.” _You fuck_ , he screams in his own ear, because he doesn’t know how to form the words, to explain about Haizora, the look on Daichi’s face is so furious and stressed that he can’t bring himself to add even in a whisper, _and I did too._

“Kageyama, that’s literally _impossible_ —”

He’s cut off by the streak of a pale yellow belly over their heads, and the familiar screech that cuts the air Kageyama would know anywhere by now: Kinboshi. Daichi swears and ducks, thrown out of their conversation.

“Holy shit, that’s another one,” Noya cries, sprinting around the corner of the house. “Ryuu! Tsukishima!” Asahi dashes after him, hammer raised. Sawamura is about to go too, as if Tanaka and Tsukishima needed three fucking warnings, but Kageyama grabs his arm.

“That’s him! Hinata! On the Nichitatsu.” Sawamura’s eyes graze the sky but the yellow mass has disappeared. Not for long, Kageyama guesses, which makes the time crunch here even more pressing. It’s good that he can sense Daichi slowing down, considering, his gaze suddenly vacant as he puts it together.

“The saddle. You two have been…”

“Don’t attack that Nichitatsu,” Kageyama tells him urgently. “Or you’re attacking Hinata.” He matches Sawamura’s dark, calculating gaze, and then the other man wrestles his arm out of Kageyama’s grasp, jogging to join the others. When they come into view, the difficulty of the situation is obvious: Asahi and Noya standing around Tsukishima, who dips his arrows into pitch and lets Tanaka dash forward to light it on the burning house. The rest of them are locked into inefficiency, with the Mizuchi refusing to budge from its perch. In a perfect world Kageyama’s strategy would be to lure it out to the fields somehow, where there’s less threat of lost property, and it can’t land out of reach, but if the thing won’t _budge_ then they’ve got no—no. They have Kinboshi. Another dragon to chase the Mizuchi out of the village. His fist clenches around the grip of his unfamiliar sword; if Hinata’s not smart enough to figure out what he needs to do, this whole thing goes to shit.

“Tsukishima!” Sawamura barks, striding toward the group with Kageyama on his heels. “Did you see the second dragon?”

“We all fuckin’ saw it, it was like ten feet above our heads,” Tanaka shouts. He places a lit arrow in Tsukishima’s hand and the blonde boy carefully loads it into his massive bow.

“Well, I need you to—”

Sawamura is cut off by a beam of harsh sunlight slicing across all of them, everyone throwing up an arm to shield their eyes at the same time. Kinboshi is back, that could only be her, and Tsukishima wheels around to the light source, and the dreadful certainty of what’s about to happen wells up in Kageyama’s throat as he shouts what he knows, painfully, will be useless words: “Don’t shoot!”

Tsukishima fires. He can’t see enough to aim, and the squawk that sounds is more of surprise than pain, but the light flares wildly as Kinboshi jerks away from the arrow, her cloaking fading just enough for Kageyama to see her fire a ball of flame—right at their group. The six of them, screeching, scatter from the impact—the ground where Tsukishima had been standing a second earlier bursts into flame—Kageyama finds himself on the ground, scrambling away from it. Friendly fire, fuck, she must’ve missed her shot because of the arrow. Not that telling Tsukishima it was an accident would help.

They’re all still on the ground when Kinboshi fires again, this time at Mizuchi, which lets out a terrific rumble and rises from its crouch. _So he’s doing it_ , Kageyama thinks, with some measure of relief, until he glances up and for the first time is able to make out Kinboshi’s back—empty.

 _Where the fuck is Hinata_. 

He could have fallen, he could be dead, he could have absolutely no fucking control over this dragon—of course, of course _Kinboshi_ is the only one that’s smart enough to draw the Mizuchi out, he realizes, watching the smaller dragon shoot little bursts of flame at the river dragon’s belly. The Mizuchi hisses and shoots back, swaddling Kinboshi in a stinging fiery bath, but, her fireproof scales glinting, she doesn’t give up an inch of air. At this point Kageyama and all his comrades are hugging the earth, avoiding the flamethrowing competition happening above their heads. He is sweating buckets from the heat, wiping it away from his eyes.

Kinboshi sends two firm consecutive blasts at the Mizuchi and finally unseats the dragon from the roof, an honest relief to Kageyama, who watches the next stage of the fight begin with such zeal that he doesn’t even notice their two new arrivals.

“Niichan, no!”

His pulse stalls. _Niichan_ … he just catches Sawamura’s eye, their captain in the middle of getting to his feet, and they both freeze.

Pulling himself to sit up, Kageyama turns to see Hinata emerging on to the alleyway battlefield, struggling to free himself from the clinging grasp of his younger sister.

“Natsu, please, go home, _run_ ,” Hinata pleads, shaking her by the shoulders, but she whines and pounds her fists on his chest.

“I don’t want you to do it, Niichan, no, no—please—”

“ _Hinata, get her out of here_ ,” Sawamura roars, springing to his feet despite the imminent danger still above their heads—behind him the others move to do the same.

The Mizuchi flaps away from the roof, into the air just above the Hinatas. _Fuck_ , and Kageyama is on his feet, running for them, but he is too slow: the Mizuchi opens its mouth, Hinata shields Natsu tightly against him, his eyes squeezed shut. _They’re gonna get fucking smoked_ , Kageyama realizes, head spinning from the pain in his nose, but he is running straight for the siblings too fast to slow down now.

A fireball crackles to life in the Mizuchi’s maw, the trigger cocked, but another flame whizzes over Kageyama’s head, forcing him to the ground again—the Mizuchi’s mouth explodes in flame and the dragon is thrown back, slamming into the burning house, which finally caves in. The crash is tremendous, a pillar of flame bursting upward from the dragon’s impact, he has to roll away to avoid the spilling flames. When he’s in the clear he looks up to find the Hinatas—are okay, clinging to each other but unharmed. Kinboshi had shot the Mizuchi just in time, and where it lies now in the flaming wreckage of that house, it rolls into a cracked beam and stabs itself in the neck; a hollow, dying wail floods the village, so loud and pained it almost drowns out the sound of Natsu’s screaming.

Almost.

There is nothing quite as unsettling as the scream of a little girl. And Hinata Natsu has pipes, she screams and screams and screams, even as her brother crouches down to comfort her and wipe the tears from her face and tell her it’s all right. Kageyama struggles to his feet, Nishinoya and Azumane and Tanaka and Sawamura rushing by him toward the pair, and he finds himself offered a hand: Tsukishima, silent, soot-covered. Kageyama lets the archer pull him to his feet, their expressions grimly matched.

The group’s rush toward the Hinatas stops short as Kinboshi sets down between them and her human companion.

“Is that a Nichitatsu?” Tanaka breathes. Noya is already moving toward the thing, knife raised, but Kageyama holds him back.

“Don’t!”

“The fuck, Kageyama?”

Kinboshi ignores them: she is focused on Hinata, her head low, asking if he’s all right. The tension is palpable from where Kageyama stands, but it seems to roll off Hinata in the presence of this creature. He smiles, untangling himself from his sister (quieted out of comfort or even more intense fear, Kageyama doesn’t know), and steps forward to stroke the dragon’s nose. “Thank you, Kinchan,” he says softly. Kinboshi raises her chin and exhales a steamy breath in his face. 

Natsu screams again. Hinata turns and reaches out to her.

“It’s okay, Nacchan, she’s—”

“Shouyou, what the fuck is this?” Noya calls, his usually confident voice coming out strained. Sawamura joins in, taking a hesitant step toward the dragon, who must sense the hostility and half-turns to bristle at his closeness. 

“Get her away from that thing, Hinata.”

Kageyama is about to chime in with a defense of the dragon but Hinata beats him to it, and for worse. “What do you think is happening here?” he spits, his big eyes catching the sun and making him spark with anger. “Kinboshi just saved me and Natsu, she’s on our side—put down your weapons!” He shouts at Tsukishima in particular, who is loading his bow. He stares at Hinata for a moment, then trains the arrow on Kinboshi’s head. Hinata lets out a noise of disgusted frustration and Kinboshi herself hisses, shrinking.

When Sawamura speaks again his voice carries its usual measured fairness, which strikes Kageyama as a bad sign. Hinata needs to seem reasonable right now more than ever. “Hinata, that fireball passed a foot from you two. It could’ve just as easily been aiming at you and Natsu.” 

“Why don’t you believe me!” Hinata cries, moving protectively toward a frightened, tense Kinboshi.

“Because it’s a fucking _dragon_ , Shouyou!” Noya shouts. Asahi raises his hammer, ready to fight, his shoulders shaking. 

“No,” says Hinata fiercely, his face growing increasingly red and his eyes ever wetter. “No, she was saving us, I asked for her help—Kageyama!” Hinata swings to face him. _There it is. Of course it comes to this_. “Kageyama, please, tell them!” They are all looking at him now, and he stumbles back, as if shot in the chest. He’s taking too long to come to Hinata’s defense, he knows it, why won’t his mouth work? Hinata’s getting garbled and hysterical. “Tell them about the storm, and how they saved us—and how we figured out that there’s a big dragon eating all the fish, and that’s why they keep attacking, they’re just hungry—”

“What?” says Tanaka softly; a look passes between Daichi and the others. 

“A big dragon?” Sawamura asks, turning to Kageyama with a scowl. He manages a nod before speaking.

“It… it caused that storm. I don’t know what it is but it’s huge, and it hunts other dragons. We’ve been calling it the Arashi.”

A pained smile comes over Daichi’s face. “So you two knew about this, and decided not to tell us?” Kageyama opens his mouth, but he’s got nothing. It’s true. He can see furious disappointment crawling over the faces around him. Hinata shuts his eyes and buries his face in Kinboshi’s neck. “You kept it a secret, so you could keep playing games with a Nichitatsu? Information that could save lives?” Natsu sobs, as if to punctuate Sawamura’s point; Asahi lowers his hammer and starts trying to edge around Hinata and Kinboshi to reach the little girl. “I know you two are kids, but that’s pretty damn disappointing.”

Hinata raises his head from the dragon’s neck, the skin around his eyes as red as the scales along her spine. “Kinboshi can help us fight it. We wanted to show you—”

“We?” Daichi echoes, with a glance at Kageyama. His head drops, unable to meet their leader’s eye. It is silent for a moment, as silent as it can be with a house burning at their backs, and Natsu sobbing gently as Asahi reaches her and lifts her off the ground. The air smells of cooking meat—the Mizuchi burning, Kageyama realizes, feeling nauseous. “Hinata!” Sawamura finally barks. “Get that dragon out of here, or I’ll let Noya at it.” Hinata stares at him, lip trembling, then leans in to whisper something in Kinboshi’s ear. She flinches, and when Hinata steps back she shoots up into the air, stirring dust in her wake. 

Sawamura starts shouting more—instructions to his team on how to put out the fire, and there are bodies rushing every which way, swirling around Kageyama, but he can’t register any of it. Hinata falls to his knees and starts to cry, openly, pathetically, and the sight of that rips through Kageyama with such disgust and pain he has to turn away. His chest feels so hot it itches—maybe Haizora has forsaken him, why the fuck shouldn’t he? He had failed to stop this. He’d nearly forgotten about the break in his nose, and then he tastes metal and realizes the blood on his upper lip has wormed into his mouth. He needs to clean up, to see Sugawara, to forget this. With that thought he starts to go, his feet moving automatically in the direction of home, but he hasn’t made it three paces before he feels a hand on his shoulder.

“Where do you think you’re going?” It’s Sawamura, stony-faced. “You’re showing me how to find the Arashi, now.”

* * *

Sugawara Koushi finds himself wishing, as he often does, that he were a little faster, and a little stronger. His feet won’t carry him where he needs to go, not with the utmost speed. And he _needs_ to go, his stomach is aching with concern as he flies down the path through the forest. The beach isn’t far but time is of the essence. 

As he moves blindly and with all his effort he is rehearsing what he’s going to say: _this is a fool’s errand, you are being a fool, please reconsider, we cannot afford to lose you_ — _to lose all of you_. He trips over a root and falls hard, gasping as pain flares in his shoulder, but he drags himself back up and keeps going. He can finally make out the sand through the trees, and he hears voices: he’s not too late. He bursts from the path on to the beach, breathing heavily, wincing at his injury.

There are three boats sitting in the harbor, and Daichi’s little militia crowds the loading area. Tsukishima is counting extra quivers of bows, Noya and Asahi are assessing what looks like it might be some kind of thermal projectile for a catapult, Tanaka carries a bunch of oars. And there is Daichi, strapping on armor.

“ _Sawamura Daichi, stop this right now!_ ” 

Every head on the beach lifts at Suga’s piercing screech. He flies at Daichi, knowing he must look absolutely mad but not caring, snatching the armor from his hands. 

“What do you think you’re doing! Just the _five of you?_ ”

“SIX,” shouts a voice from behind Suga—Yamaguchi Tadashi bounds down the beach, waving a bow above his head. Tsukishima stiffens at the sight of him. 

“Yamaguchi, you don’t have to—”

“I want to,” Yamaguchi pants, slowing his sprint. “If Kageyama isn’t coming, you can use the help, right? I’m a pretty good shot, I think.” 

Tsukishima stares at him, then mutters, “Yeah, you’re all right.”

“I won’t stop you from coming,” Daichi tells their new arrival, and Suga feels a pang in his chest—another one of them headed on this stupid quest, another one who won’t come back alive. Suga spins, looking for someone else to convince.

“Noya!” The little man’s ears perk, as Suga rushes him, sand flying around his feet. “Don’t do this, you can’t beat that thing.” Noya glances up at Asahi, whose eyes are on his hammer, his face pale.

“Asahi-san and I have seen worse,” Noya grunts, popping to his feet and striding toward the boats. Asahi lifts his gaze to look at Suga, the line of his mouth grim.

“I go where Noya goes, and Noya says we should go with Daichi.”

“ _No_ ,” Suga whines. He feels Daichi’s hand on his arm and jumps. 

“Suga.” The captain is reaching to take back his piece of armor, which Suga has been clinging to, but Suga throws it into the sand. Daichi grimaces and jogs to retrieve it, and Suga tails him.

“No! Listen to me! There is only one way this is going to end, and it’s with all of you dead.” It was the first image that entered his head fifteen minutes ago, when he’d been setting the break in Kageyama’s nose and the boy explained about the Arashi, and what Daichi intended to do. Suga has never heard of a dragon with spirit magic powerful enough to create storms, he has never heard of a dragon that hunts and eats its own kind, he has never witnessed anything like the Arashi in all his learning about these creatures. And he trusted the very real fear in Kageyama’s voice as he relayed the information. This threat is not like other threats, and it can’t be handled the same way—by six clever, lightly-armed peasants. They will _die_. 

“Suga,” Daichi says again, with that resigned calmness that’s so infuriating. “We have to do something. People are going die, and if they don’t die they’re going to starve.”

“Not this. Not—” Daichi starts to turn away and Suga grabs at the front of his clothes. “Just wait, wait two days and see how you feel—”

“We don’t have two days!” Daichi snaps, raising his voice so that Suga lets go of him, mouth falling open. Daichi is scary-angry, but almost more frightening is his being so angry he can’t _see_ what he’s doing, how foolish this is. “Every moment we wait to go get this thing, it’s eating more of our food, putting this island in danger—we can’t wait.”

“You haven’t even consulted Ukai-san, I’m sure he’d urge caution—”

“Ukai-san has entrusted the defense of Karasuno to me, and this is my decision,” Daichi says through his teeth, his patience with Suga’s pleading gone. He gestures for the others to start getting into the boats.

“Please.” Suga’s throat is closing up, his vision is blurring. “Just wait a day, just a day…”

“For _what_ , Suga?” Daichi raises his arms, as though asking the universe for an answer as much as anyone person. “For Hinata to figure out how to turn dragons into bunnies?” Suga winces, squeezing the half-formed tears out of his eyes. He’d been afraid Daichi would bring this up, frame it as the only other option, make himself seem utterly reasonable because at least he’s not talking about _taming_ them.

“I… maybe it’s not so crazy,” Suga offers quietly, both because he’s trying not to burst out crying and because he doesn’t want Daichi to hear him defend Hinata’s claims. But talking to Kageyama about it— _Kageyama_ , not Hinata, and what a difference it makes—he’d felt the boy’s sincerity. If Hinata had managed to convert Kageyama, his _rival_ , to his line of thinking, doesn’t that mean there has to be something to it?

Daichi snorts, a dry humorless laugh. “Yeah, now I know I shouldn’t be listening to you, Sugawara-san. Forgive the rudeness, but a little girl almost died today.” Suga winces, not just physically but somewhere in his soul, if souls could wince. And Daichi turns away, heading for the boats—they are waiting for him now, ready to go. Suga’s fists tighten, frustration overflowing, he shouts at Daichi’s back.

“Sawamura, as your superior, I can’t forgive this!”

Daichi pauses, knee-deep in the water, to glance back at him. Everyone has been silent through their argument—it had the cadence of a fight not to be interrupted. Now the only intervention is Tanaka offering Daichi a hand into one of the boats. Daichi looks at it, then back at Suga, whoopens his mouth again and wants to find another word to make them stay. _Please, Daichi_. _Please._ In all this, the leadership thrust on them as young men, still kids in their own right, they have always at least been _together_. United in their burden—and now Daichi slots his hand into Tanaka’s, and climbs into the boat. “Let’s move out,” he calls to the others. “Due north!” 

Suga buries his face in his sleeve, swallowing a sob, trying to mop what tears he’s shed. He lowers his arm and has to turn away from the water, so as not to see them sailing away in silence, and be flooded with guilt knowing that this is the last time—the last time he will ever see see Daichi and Nishinoya and Asahi and Tanaka, and Tsukishima and Yamaguchi, who are so _young_. He was the last thing between them and going to their deaths, and he failed to stand in the way. Suga sinks to his knees, dumbstruck, and fists his hands into the sand. He doesn’t notice the late afternoon sun, sinking lower and lower in the sky, toward an eventual sunset.

* * *

_Dragon._

It is the only kanji he recognizes, from the line of writing carved into facade of the alarm bell. The iron mammoth—the same size as Hinata’s whole body—has sat in the village square for as long as he can remember. It might be fifty years old or two-hundred, he doesn’t really know, but it’s weathered a long haul: marring the metal are streaks of soot, and cracks, and claw marks. It says, as far as he knows, _something something something dragon something_ , and has a little mural of some people hunting a dragon, which Hinata traces absently with his finger. His eyes are raw and his throat is still sore from earlier; even the silly little carving of a dragon chokes him up. The light of day is fading overhead, but his little sun can’t cancel this out.

They don’t know what they’re doing, Sawamura-san and everyone. If they knew, if they could just understand—seized with anger, Hinata bangs his fist into the bell—it doesn’t even make a noise, but he curls away with a whimper: he’s split the knuckles on his hand. Staring at the wound and feeling a weird combination of sadness, exhaustion and nausea, he tries to prepare for the likelihood of throwing up while crying.

“I thought I would find you at the cove.”

He looks up, and there is Kageyama. His nose is… purple and swollen, and guilt lurches through Hinata.

“Oh, Kageyama-kun, sorry—”

“Don’t worry about it,” the other boy grunts, plopping down on the other side of the bell’s stone base. Hinata nods weakly; he’ll still worry about it, probably. It’s strange—he is not a quitter. He has never been a quitter, because he always _gets up_ , ganbaru, he has no other way to live. He excels at seeing the opportunity to keep going no matter where it lies, close and obvious or in the furthest reaches of improbability, and he pursues it, because he can’t stop himself.

Today he can’t see it. Maybe it’s exhaustion, or maybe it’s because he had been so sure that if they could just witness Kinboshi in action, they would get it. He had been so sure that other people were _like him_ , that they could overcome generations of prejudicial conditioning and see the present for what it is, and see Kinboshi for what she could be. He just had to show them what he’d seen.

But he doesn’t see like most people, it seems. People, he understands, and the realization crushes him, are creatures of habit and fear and injustice. Even the ones he wanted to trust.

“How is Natsu? And Kinboshi?” Kageyama asks, at Hinata’s silence. Hinata thinks he might sound strange or off somehow, but it could just be his messed up nose.

“They’re okay. I can’t go visit Kinchan because Natsu is sleeping and I didn’t want to…” _Abandon her, because everyone thinks I almost let her get killed today._

“I’m glad she’s okay. That they’re both okay,” says Kageyama stiffly. Hinata glances at him but looks away quickly—there is blood caked around his lips. It reminds Hinata of his stinging hand, and he pulls his sleeve down so he doesn’t have to look at the injury. “Sawamura-san has taken the militia to the dragon island, to fight the Arashi.”

Hinata gapes. “How—you…”

“I gave them directions.” Kageyama ducks his head. “I advised them to camp for the night without drawing the Arashi’s attention, then attack in the morning.”

“That’s—they _need_ other dragons to defeat it, there’s no—”

“You don’t think I know that?” Kageyama snaps, climbing to his feet and pacing away from Hinata, who clambers up after him, wanting to spit at the other boy’s back. His anger at the day comes out, and Kageyama makes an easy target.

“Have you ever believed in any of this? I thought you were on my side, that you wanted things to be better, for _Haizora_ , at least.” Kageyama refuses to look at him so he speeds up, shoving himself into Kageyama’s path, forcing a confrontation. “But earlier, too, you just stood there and let them send Kinboshi away!”

“I’m sorry,” Kageyama murmurs, still bowing his head—Hinata considers smacking his chin to get him to look up, but he already broke the guy’s nose, so he restrains himself.

“You can’t just be _sorry_ , that does nothing—”

“I didn’t know what to say!”

“That we should trust them, because you’ve seen what they can do, and—”

“No.” Kageyama’s head shoots up, and when he looks at Hinata there is something… calming in it. Not in a way that assuages any of his fears, not in a permanent sense, but it’s as though he were hot and scratchy and someone dumped water over his agitation. “I can’t say those things,” Kageyama says in a low voice, his chest rising each shallow breath. “I’m not like you. I got sucked into this by accident, but you chose it. You’re the one who saw how things could be.” He sticks his chin out and raises his hands, and for a second Hinata isn’t sure what he’ll do, but then his hands clap Hinata’s shoulders. “I’m on your side. But you make the difference.”

Lips parted, he stares at this boy, and finds himself wondering bizarrely if they are _friends_. Him and Kageyama. “I make the difference,” he repeats, a murmur, eyes gazing widely upwards. He is not sure he can remember ever hearing something like that before, from anyone, and certainly not from Kageyama. This thought that he can _do_ something. Pain jabs at his hand and he lifts it, numb to the sight of blood for once: he turns it over and examines his palm. He makes the difference.

Red-faced, Kageyama retracts his touch jerkily. “I came to find you because… because Sawamura and everyone are going to their deaths, probably.” Hinata glances up, an eyebrow raised, his mouth still hanging open. “And I was curious what you were going to do about that.”

“Me? Going to do...”

“Yeah,” Kageyama grunts, folding his arms over his chest. “Because I have a few ideas, but uh, you seem like you really want to sit here stewing in your own—” Hinata punches him in the stomach and he doubles over.

“I’m not fucking stewing, Kageyama!” Kageyama swipes at him, and he dodges it, a grin breaking across his face. What is he going to do about that? He squeezes his eyes shut, and focuses on his little sun. _Kinchan, I need you_. His heart pounds against his ribs, his stomach somersaults, adrenaline pumping. “Come on,” he says, wrapping himself around the other boy’s arm. “We’ll have to be there by daybreak.” Finally, he can see it again: the opportunity that lies in the furthest reaches of improbability. It is here, the moment, their deadline is up.

Kageyama, still a little awkward, nods. “I’m here, whatever you need.”

“On my side?”

“Yeah,” Kageyama mutters, letting himself be dragged toward the hills. Hinata inhales in the sunset and feels it course through him. “On your side.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> everything... will be fine... eventually.


	4. the last fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a few new tags for this chapter... an asanoya tag, which is fun, and a graphic depictions of violence tag, which is less fun. on a related note, this chapter has the most blood/gore of any so far (and probably any to come) so just a warning before you commence.
> 
> there is NO MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH in this fic.

 

**Asahi, are you there?**

_Yes. I’m here._

**Whoo, I can hear you good tonight.**

_Yeah…_

**Can I come over to you?**

_Someone might see._

**They’re all sleeping like logs.**

_I can’t sleep._

**Me either.**

_You never can, though._

**I’m coming over.**

Asahi opens his eyes and sees the moon, hanging over their camp in the hills of the Arashi’s island. He thinks it’s too big in the sky, that moon, and it nags at his superstitious streak. It’s quiet but for the crickets and the distant rustle of the ocean, and the shallow breathing of his sleeping comrades. And the pitter-patter of Noya’s feet coming toward him.

He rolls over and smiles as Noya sinks down beside him, and they face each other lying on their sides. Even in the bad light he can see the shadow of a bruise forming along Noya’s cheekbone, but his grin is distracting. It always seems to work that way with Noya, that he makes himself shine so bright you only notice his bruises if you squint against the glare. Asahi swallows.

“Are you mad at me?” he whispers.

Noya’s grin flinches. “Why would I be mad at you?”

“Because I wouldn’t help you get up on the… I sided with Daichi.”

“Eh,” mutters Noya, turning on to his back. “I hate to admit it but, that was probably for the best. I wouldn’t have wanted to be on that Mizuchi when the Nichitatsu came in.”

“You’re not hurt, are you?”

“Nah, I’m invincible now, don’t you know?” He flexes his arm and kisses the bicep. Asahi giggles half-heartedly.

“I hope so.” He watches Noya watch the stars, thinking of the need for invincibility. How many hours do they have before daybreak? Should he be passing them more preciously than this? “Yuu, what do you think will happen tomorrow?”

Noya glances at him, frowning now. “Are you worried about it?”

“Yes.” Of course he’s… ugh. “This dragon, it’s…” He can still hear the desperation in Suga’s voice, begging them not to go. He knows some of that passion was just the fierce attachment to Daichi, but Suga is the one who knows the most about dragons: his advice can’t be too misguided, or his concern too misplaced.

“It sounds like a fucking nightmare,” mutters Noya, the side of his mouth turning up, eyes glazing over. _Don’t find this fun, please,_ he thinks, and Noya twitches.

“I’m more frightened of surviving than dying,” Asahi admits. Noya smiles again, not very happily: he knows that feeling, how hard it can be to move on from these big fights, the ones where you go in not knowing whether you’ll make it out, and even less certain if it’ll be in one piece. A little part of you dies regardless, and then you’re missing that forever. Asahi doesn’t think he can do it again—they had been lucky, before, in some senses. Surely the universe’s favor will run out at some point. 

Noya reaches between them and pushes some hair out of Asahi’s face, even though they really shouldn’t touch, not here, but it feels nice. “I think that tomorrow,” he says quietly, “will be whatever it wants to be. Daichi was going to come here whether or not we went with him. He’s got a slightly better chance of not kicking it if we’re here, you know?”

“Yeah. I wish he’d listen to Suga.”

“I think Daichi and Suga-san have some issues to resolve,” Noya snorts.

“What if Hinata’s on to something?”

Noya gives him a quizzical look. He’s neither close-minded nor cautious, but he’s had enough run-ins with dragons that he won’t be easily converted to this radical new way of thinking. “It’s hard to believe.”

“But I’d like to.” It would be easier, that way; Asahi can’t pretend he is someone who enjoys all this, that he wouldn’t like it better if they had peace. Not that any of them are warmongers or anything, but he in particular feels a detachment from violence. It’s not his modus operandi. He sometimes envies people like Hinata Shouyou. He wishes he were small enough that brute force wasn’t expect of him.

“Is that realistic?” Noya asks, rubbing his chin.

“Nothing good would ever happen if we were only realistic all the time.”

Noya’s head turns and he peers at Asahi, the color of his bright eyes muted in the moonlight. He could be angry or confused or thoughtful, even Asahi can’t always tell, and they’re supposed to be able to read one another’s minds. And then Noya says, beaming, “That’s a good attitude to have, Asahi-san. I’m proud of you.” And he makes to kiss Asahi’s forehead, with Asahi trying to push him off. 

“You’re embarrassing me!”

“Shh, someone will hear,” Noya whispers loudly, giggling, wrapping his arms around Asahi’s burly shoulders and peppering kisses along his brow. Eventually Asahi submits to being cuddled, he always does, because Noya is good at that and their special situation means the security carries extra reassurance, the snugness that's mental as well as physical. He settles into Noya’s embrace and smells his smell and feels the sharpness of a chin nudging at his hairline. **Good,** says Noya’s voice in his head. Asahi smiles at that, but feels it slip away. Tomorrow is just a few hours off.

“I want this fight to be our last.” _Whatever that means_.

Noya sighs around him. Another kiss on his brow. “Then I guess we’ll have to win it.” 

* * *

“Yamaguchi, can you hear Azumane and Nishinoya talking?”

“Yes, Tsukki.”

“They go on and on.”

“They do.”

“I wish they’d shut up. I’d go tell them off but I don’t want to see anything weird.”

“Yeah.”

“I want to sleep. We only get a few hours to sleep, and they’re talking.”

“We’re talking too.”

“Shut up.”

“Sorry, Tsukki. Aren’t you nervous?”

Tsukishima half sits up, squinting in the dark, and harder with his glasses tucked away in his belongings. Yamaguchi asks this question with striking simplicity, peeking up at the sky, suspiciously calm. And then he reaches up to rub his eye and Tsukishima spies the tremor in his hand. “No.” Tsukki lies back down. Weird.

“Most people would be nervous.”

“Guess I’m not most people.” He doesn’t give a fuck about dying or danger. As archers, Sawamura won’t let either of them get very close, and beyond that⏤ he doesn’t give a fuck. He remembers Akiteru’s face when he’d announced where he was going. Yeah, no fucks.

“I guess you’re not.” Yamaguchi hums and squeezes his eyes shut tightly. Tsukki finds himself eyeing his friend out the corner of his own vision, wondering about these weird questions. He can still hear Nishinoya giggling on the opposite side of their camp, which is irritating. 

“Why did you even want to come if you’re scared, Yamaguchi?”

The other boy swallows, apple of his throat seizing anxiously. “Because I wanted to stand with you guys, at a time when it really matters.”

“Why?”

Yamaguchi tilts his head, looking at Tsukki, open-mouthed as though he didn’t understand the question. “I just told you why.”

“You told me what you want to do, not why you want to do it.”

“I… I want to be part of something.” Yamaguchi chews his lip, a little nick between his brows. “Why, is that weird? Isn’t that enough of a reason?”

“To sign on for almost certain death? Seriously?”

“What’s your reason, Tsukki?”

Tsukishima watches for a moment, then turns on to his back. He and Yamaguchi have been friends for a long time, but it was always by default. He never really felt as though he had extended the offer of friendship to this nervous, freckled carpenter’s son⏤; more, they fell into step together, and their strides happened to match. This, he realizes, is the deepest conversation he has ever had with Yamaguchi. “Because I’d rather be here than at home,” he says flatly, and it’s the truth of what he feels. And having the truth of what he feels on his tongue like that, untouched by irony, chilling the air between them, is not a familiar sensation. But Yamaguchi knows, now, and if he’s smart he won’t press for more.

The other boy _is_ smart: he gives Tsukki a wide-eyed, fawn-like look but nods, chin rubbing his shoulder. Finally there’s silence over from where Azumane and Nishinoya are lying; Tsukki shuts his eyes. 

“I’m going to sleep now.”

There’s a long pause before he hears, small and tired, “Goodnight, Tsukki.”

* * *

 _I can’t forgive this_.

How many hours until daybreak? One or two? No more than that, but the moon is behind the clouds somewhere, making certainty impossible. 

_There is only one way this is going to end._

Daichi scouted the bay best he could before the sunset, while the others made camp. He has a rough idea of the geography now, and he sits awake, far enough from the sleepers to avoid their attention, drawing potential attack plans in the dirt. 

_Please, just wait a day._

He rolls his ankle, still pained after he’d hit the ground dodging the Mizuchi’s flame, not twenty-four hours ago.

But there is no time to waste, he tells himself. Suga… isn’t a bushi, this is far from his area of expertise. Excluding the involvement of dragons. Which _would_ be his area of expertise, technically. 

Daichi throws his drawing stick away and shoves his face into his hands. Fuck. _Fuck_.

Now is not the time to be having second thoughts, but they’re unavoidable: thoughts of quietly packing up their weapons and camp, tiptoeing back to the boats on the far side of the island from the Arashi’s lair, sailing to Karasuno and returning in a few days better-rested. He fantasizes about it. Such a cushy, indulgent idea, that a few more hours of sleep would help their odds against this creature.

Because his quiet panic is just the reason that it’s now or never: ⏤they go home, they wait, they start to overthink it, like Daichi is doing right now. And all the adrenaline and the determination bleeds into fear, stupid and docile. Once they leave this island they will never come back⏤; once _Daichi_ leaves this island he will never be able to make himself come back. The Arashi will destroy their home, one way or another, and they’ll have been too locked into caution to lift a finger. He is a cautious man, Sawamura Daichi, very upstanding and practical and valiant, and today it could have been his weakness. He wants to think he overcame something.

 _As your superior, I can’t forgive this_. He tries not to think of Suga’s face, contorted in horror, and ends up fisting a chunk of his own hair so tightly it hurts. The conversation they’ll have when they meet again… if they meet again. _There is only one way this is going to end._ It’s hard to think of yourself as _overcoming_ with shit like that running through your head, and the image of a beautiful tear-stained face begging you not to go seared across your vision, the moment you close your eyes. No wonder he can’t sleep.

Daichi rubs away the most recent attack plan with the tip of his boot, and starts looking for another stick. The basic idea: draw the thing out of its lair, flip it on its stomach, and spill its guts. But that is more a list of goals than a _plan,_ perse. And he still hasn’t laid eyes on the damn dragon... ⏤nothing really matters until he sees what they’re up against, properly.  

“Dai-san, you’re awake?”

He turns. Tanaka is padding toward him, with a wary glance over at their sleeping companions.

“You too.”

“Everyone stayed up fuckin’ whispering to each other, and then I felt kinda bummed I didn’t have anyone to whisper to,” Tanaka admits, joining Daichi on the low boulder where he’s perched.

“Sorry about that. I was hoping you all could get a good night’s sleep.”

“Eh, I don’t mind. I’ll be really alert like this.” Tanaka puts his chin on his fist, staring out at the sliver of ocean visible through the trees. Daichi joins him in looking, though after a moment he feels Tanaka’s gaze sliding back to him. “So how are you doing, Captain?”

Daichi sets about drawing his makeshift map of the Arashi’s bay again. “Fine. Passable.”

“Suga-san didn’t shake you up too bad, did he?”

Daichi lifts his head and eyes Tanaka. This man is just slightly his junior, a third generation dragon-killer. His sister’s talents had even supported a career on the mainland as a sort of pest remover⏤—infestations tended to be less severe there, and dragon hunting served as entertainment. The Warrior Princess, with her fans and following. Tanaka has always suffered being in his sister’s shadow, Daichi thinks, but in some senses it’s given him skills she never learned: how to listen, and observe, and solve other people's problems. He and Noya are alike in a lot of ways, but Tanaka is the more thoughtful of the two. “Tanaka,” he says, turning away. “If I die, you ought to take over leadership of the militia.”

Tanaka stiffens, probably not expecting the praise. Daichi fights off a smile; an enjoyable battle, for once. “Are you serious, sir?”

“I’m serious. I think you’d be good at it. Nishinoya doesn’t need the added pressure, and no one else would want it.”

“Not even Kageyama?”

“Kageyama is a child,” Daichi replies simply. “One day he’ll stop being a child, very suddenly I think, but until then… I don’t know, maybe his days of fighting dragons are over entirely.” The boy’s talents as a swordsman are unmatched on Karasuno, true, but Kageyama had been foolish enough to let Hinata’s scheme persuade him. And now that he’s eighteen there’s no telling how long he’ll stick around. Certainly he has bigger fish to fry, samurai-sized fish, fish that make defending Karasuno look like a tadpole.

Tanaka nods, running his hand over the smooth surface of his head, then scans Daichi’s map in the dirt. “But you’re not going to die, so I guess none of it really matters, does it?”

Daichi’s heart stalls in his chest; the first response that comes to mind is, _thank you_. He is so accustomed to being the confident champion of everyone else’s efforts he rarely hears support for his own abilities. So he gives Tanaka a smile that’s almost genuine, and would be entirely heartfelt under any other circumstances. “You’re absolutely right.”

“Is it worth trying to get a little more sleep? How long until we get started?”

“Just before daybreak. You have an hour and a half, go use it.” 

Tanaka gets to his feet. “You should really do the same, Dai-san,” he offers, with a hand on Daichi’s shoulder.

“Right again, Tanaka.” He watches the other man go, knowing full well that he won’t sleep a wink tonight. Damn Suga. He turns back to his map, refocusing⏤—step one, draw it out…

* * *

“Are you sure you don’t want any of us to come with you?”

“No thank you, Kiyoko-san!” Hinata sings. Kiyoko continues watching the boy stuff supplies into a set of saddlebags, secured to the back of a... Nichitatsu. A real one. When Hinata had introduced them to the creature⏤—after pounding on the shop’s door at one o’clock in the morning to rouse her and Yachi⏤—Kiyoko’s first instinct had been to put herself between her apprentice and the dragon, just in case. Even hours later and without anyone to protect (she’d sent a tearful Yachi back to bed), Kiyoko shrinks each time one of the animals moves, as she stand on the beach waiting to see Hinata and Kageyama off. It’s still dark mainly, but the sky has lightened enough for them to see what they’re doing.

Kiyoko had wanted⏤—she had tried, really⏤—to have a conversation with Sugawara about this _mission_ , when the boys brought it to her, but she’d found him curled up in the futon in the back room of the apothecary, unresponsive apart from mumbling Daichi’s name a few times. Then, swallowing her apprehensions, she’d gone and woken Ukai and Takeda, and discovered their shared cluelessness about the entire matter. Takeda went to look after Sugawara, and Ukai joined her in assisting Hinata and Kageyama’s preparations without ever really granting permission. After muttering a string of complaints about how little anyone tells him around here, he now sits on the sand chewing the end of his pipe in silence. 

Hinata slaps the last of his saddlebags closed. He has a sword through his obi that’s just a smidge too big for him, its tip catching the sand when he moves. “Where is Kageyama? I told him we need to be there _before_ daybreak, not when it’s starting.” The black dragon, the one that answers to Kageyama, is lying further down the beach, eyeing them suspiciously. There’s a saddle sitting nearby, but Hinata hasn’t made to tack the dark one like he did the Nichitatsu.

“What’s so important about daybreak?” Ukai grunts around his pipe.

“That’s when Kinboshi and Haizora’s magic is strongest, and when Sawamura-san will probably launch his attack. We need to beat him to it.” Hinata checks the clasp on his crossbow’s quiver, where it’s strapped to the rear of his saddle, and then tries to tug up his sword so it won’t drag.

“So you’ve got a plan, then?” Ukai asks.

“We do! And it’s good, Kageyama and I worked together on it.” He seems to relish those words, _worked together_.

“If you’re in a rush, why don’t you get the other one ready?” Kiyoko offers gently. Hinata glances at her over his shoulder, cheeks going red.

“Uhm. Getting Haizora ready is Kageyama’s responsibility. It would be… weird if I did it.”

“Well, I’m here now,” comes Kageyama’s growling voice; he appears at the entrance to the forest path, a scabbard on each side of his hips. Kiyoko grabs him as he comes and takes a reproving look at the bruise around his nose. “Suga looked after it,” he mutters, and she nods and lets him go on.

“Two swords, Kageyama?” Hinata gasps, bouncing forward to greet him. “Do you think that makes you a samurai or something?”

“Shut up. There’s a chip in my katana so I needed a back-up.” Kageyama marches toward his own dragon, and Kiyoko feels her stomach flinch to see him approaching it so boldly. The animal stirs at the sight of him, but the look he gives Kageyama is softer even than the one he’d pinned on Hinata.

“You need to saddle him,” Hinata tells his partner as he straps his crossbow to his back, earning himself a dirty look.

“I know that.”

“You and Haizora trust each other, Kageyama-kun. Don’t be scared to fly.”

“I’m not scared,” Kageyama snorts, but when he retrieves the saddle and glances upward, Kiyoko notices him chewing his lip.

“Hinata-kun,” she says, hoping to give Kageyama a little privacy in his struggle. The orange-haired boy turns to her, bright-faced. If he’s frightened by what he’s set out to do, she can’t see it. “Is there anything else you need from me, or Ukai-san?” Ukai grunts, hopefully in solidarity.

“Well, I have ropes, and firecrackers, and a little food and water.” Hinata pats the dragon’s neck, smile growing wider. “And I have Kinchan. So I’m good!” Kiyoko finds his optimism unsettling⏤it bodes a disaster. But the alternative is disastrous too, she understands, with Daichi and his entire team dying. She wraps her yukata a little tighter, wishing they at least had the sun to see them off. Leaving in the middle of the night is ominous.

“Hello, hold on!” Takeda. Ukai sits up, he hadn’t expected his friend to join them. “I found someone who wanted to see you all off…” But there’s the little man tottering down the path, hand linked with Hinata Natsu’s. The girl looks worn, dark circles under her eyes and hair a mess. And Kiyoko instantly wants to reach out to her. She has always been small, all Hinatas are small, but now she seems as though her usual buoyancy has shriveled up.

Hinata immediately runs to hug his sister, falling on his knees so she stands a head taller than him. “Nacchan, how are you feeling!” Takeda goes to join his boss, and they watch the exchange. 

Natsu barely sounds like a child when she speaks. “I don’t want you to go, Niichan.”

Hinata’s resilient beaming finally wanes a little as he looks up at his sister. “I know. But I have to.”

“You don’t!”

“I do. Sawamura-san and everyone need my help.” Natsu bites her lip, fighting off tears⏤—Kiyoko has never seen her try to resist crying. It might be more painful than if she sobbed openly, and it seems to make the same impression on Hinata, who cups her cheek. “I’ll be fine, okay? I have Kinchan to protect me, and she’s huge, see?” He gestures over his shoulder at the dragon, but Natsu shuts her eyes instead of looking. “And I have Kageyama, too. He’s on my side and he’s got _two_ swords.” Natsu opens an eye to glance at Kageyama, just finishing up with Haizora’s saddle. “Here,” chirps Hinata, hopping to his feet suddenly. “Why don’t you come pet Kinchan!” Kiyoko’s head starts to shake reflexively. Hinata bounds toward the dragon, beckoning his sister, but Natsu still has her eyes on Kageyama and starts stumbling his way.

“Hey! You!” She stops a good distance from Haizora, her round face fixed in a glare. Kageyama turns, bewildered at the sight of a mini-Hinata calling him out. “You better not let anything bad happen to my brother. I don’t trust dragons, so that means it’s on _you_.”

Kageyama gapes down at her, then glances around the group (Hinata has his face in his hands), then back to the little girl. “Okay. I won’t let anything bad happen to him.”

“You couldn’t keep bad things from happening to your nose—” Kageyama flinches, Hinata cackles into his arm. “Why am I supposed to think you can protect my brother?” Apparently at a loss for words, Kageyama raises his hand to his black-and-blue nose, squinting down at Natsu. “Do you swear?”

Hardening over again, Kageyama turns back to tighten the closure on Haizora’s girth. “I swear. Hey,” he barks, at the elder Hinata, who jumps. “I’m ready.” Kiyoko extends her arms to Natsu, and the girl comes to wrap around her waist and watch the departure. Hinata turns and gives them a smile, but it vanishes once he fits his foot in the stirrup and swings on to the gold dragon’s back. That’s the first flicker of fear Kiyoko has seen in him tonight (or this morning, she isn’t even sure of the time anymore). It’s reassuring, oddly, to know he understands the magnitude of what he’s undertaking.

Kageyama follows suit, settling into the saddle. His hands go to the horn at once, clearly nervous, but his face pinches with determination to hide the anxiety. 

“Here we go,” Hinata shouts to no one in particular, the excitement in his voice not ringing genuine. Ukai and Takeda get to their feet, the former sighing noisily. 

Kiyoko wraps her arms around Natsu’s trembling shoulders. “Are you sure you don’t want one of us to come along, Hinata-kun?” she calls. “For an extra pair of hands?”

“We don’t need more bodies in the fray,” Kageyama replies in Hinata’s place. _Bodies_. Kiyoko shivers at that word that’s devoid of life.

“G’bye! Bye, Natsu!” Hinata cries, with that same forced cheer, then he leans over the saddle and the gold dragon snaps into motion—Kiyoko and Natsu both lean away to avoid the spray of sand raised in the dragon’s wake. Kageyama takes another moment: he draws deep breath after deep breath, eyes wide and glued to the sky, then he’s gone like a shot too.

Swaddled in Kiyoko’s arms, Natsu turns and buries her face in the older woman’s obi, finally starting to cry. Her sobs and the ocean’s constant lapping are the only sound for several minutes, as the four of them stand there, the three adults with their eyes on the vacanies Hinata and Kageyama left in the island sand.

* * *

Daichi had hoped to see the Arashi before they had to fight it; now they’re fighting it and he still hasn’t laid eyes on the thing.

The wind roars in his ears, the rain pelts them viciously, the air ten feet in front of them barely visible. The dragon itself is smothered in a layer of swirling, opaque black-grey cloud: it could be fifty feet long and puffing itself up, or it could be the entire length of the cloudy mass, over a hundred and fifty feet. He’s spent much of the past twenty minutes praying for the former, because the Arashi is _mad_ —they’d successfully drawn it from its lair just before daybreak with a volley of flaming arrows, but some synapse had misfired in Daichi’s brain and he had just _forgotten_ that the Arashi was the source of that terrible storm a few weeks ago—and if they roused it, they would rouse its defense mechanism too.

“Tsukishima,” he screams above a broad crack of thunder. “Can you shoot its eye? The eyes are yellow, you can sort of see them!”

When the storm began the four of them fighting with melee weapons—himself, Noya, Asahi and Tanaka—had retreated up the cliff overlooking the bay, where they’d positioned Tsukishima and Yamaguchi as archers.

“I can’t fucking see anything, actually,” Tsukishima shouts back, wiping uselessly at the rain on his glasses. Daichi spies it again: a yellow glint toward the front of the cloud mass. _That is one fucking big eye_.

“I can try!” comes Yamaguchi’s voice, and he scrambles a little closer to the cliff edge to aim with his bow; despite his vision being impaired, Tsukki reaches out to steady him by his soaking wet obi. The freckled boy fires just as the yellow glint vanishes, his arrow disappearing into the storm. He can feel all of them holding their breath, waiting for some sign that the shot made contact. They have a limited number of arrows, they can’t just keep aiming for the clouds and hoping. 

Then a wailing roar rips the air, and shakes the ground under their feet. Tsukishima and Yamaguchi both stumble back from the ledge, Daichi nearly slips over it, and up a little where the others are hiding out he hears Noya cackle nervously. From the force of it Daichi wagers that fifty feet long is probably an underestimation for this thing, and he struggles to steady himself, his drenched and muddy clothes weighing him down. _It’s been a few minutes, and already I want to give in_.

But that central ball of storm has sheathed the entire island in typhoon-like winds, which renders an escape by boat impossible. Their only option would be to go wait out the storm and the dragon, hiding somewhere, but he has a feeling— _Boom._ He swears as the earth shakes again, harder this time, and he slams to the ground. He nearly dives over the cliff but catches himself on a rock, earning a good long look at the beach below them, where—the Arashi’s claw has just fallen. _It’s coming on land_. He has a feeling this thing will search until it finds them. 

The claw is about as long and wide as Tsukishima’s entire body. Daichi recoils from the ledge, piecing together a mental image of the rest of the monster. Well, shit.

From somewhere behind him Yamaguchi fires another arrow at the cloud mass—now nearer than ever—and Daichi turns to see Tsukishima clamping a hand around his friend’s wrist. “Don’t waste them! Shoot when you can see it!”

“We’ll never be able to see it,” wails Yamaguchi. He has a point. Squinting against the rain, Daichi jogs forward to find the rest of their party: they come into view as if appearing from the mist, Noya coming to meet him.

“Dai-san, you want me to try and get in there?” Asahi and Tanaka exchange a hilariously mortified look at Noya’s blind bravery. Like Daichi, Yamaguchi and Tsukishima, these three are all soaked to the bone, clinging to rocks to avoid the force of the wind and the give of the mud. Noya’s usually vertical hairstyle has deflated with the water, so he looks shrunken, even smaller as he offers himself up as a kamakazi. 

“Fuck no,” Daichi shouts, half to be heard over the wind and half because Noya is an idiot.

“Just offering!”

“I think it’s starting to come up on the beach. We might have a—”

 _Boom_. The earth shakes again, another footstep probably. “Fuck,” cries Noya, reaching to grab Asahi’s arm.

“We might have a better shot at doing some damage once it’s on land,” Daichi finally manages. Tanaka and Noya nod, but Asahi doesn’t seem to hear, his gaze glued to Noya’s hand on his arm.

Tanaka raises his polesword. “You want us to go down to the beach now?”

It’s hard to force himself to say what he needs to say, which is, “Yes.” He knows very well the likeliest outcome of their stepping on that beach right now, just as he knows they have no other option. They have to do this, even if it is the last thing they do. The slim chance they’ve got lies in taking every opportunity that arises.

He leads them back down to Yamaguchi and Tsukishima, who have backed away from the ledge as the cloud mass grew nearer. 

“Hey,” Daichi calls, and comes to clap each of their shoulders. “If we don’t come back fast enough, get out of here and take one of the boats back to Karasuno. Don’t follow us.” The boys look at each other briefly, then nod. He didn’t exactly expect reckless heroism of them—they’re more practical than Hinata by a long shot—but he doesn’t want to leave behind any more guilty parties than necessary. Suga is enough damage wrought for one lifetime.

He turns back to his older men and cries, “Let’s go!” And they start moving down. Above them, he spots Yamaguchi run to the ledge, and fire an arrow into the cloud mass. The thin projectile whistles through the air.

And explodes over the surface of the cloud mass in a brilliant display of blue and gold light. _What kind of arrow is that?_ Daichi thinks to himself, in an instant, before astonishment sets in.

The blast knocks them all backwards, momentarily freezing their descent to the beach. From a single tight burst toward the front of the storm, the explosion rips across the Arashi’s clouds like fuel oil lit aflame, eating through the air and shoving the dark grey clouds aside until all its edges meet in a huge sphere. In the process the formerly opaque barrier around the Arashi becomes disturbed and he can spy portions of the dragon’s torso, finally: slimy olive green, burly back legs just rising out of the bay, no wings. _No wings_. That’s good news, the first good news of the day.

The Arashi begins to roar frantically, thrashing back from the beach and into the water, the earth quaking beneath Daichi and his team. The ball of light glows, light writhing across its surface like the moon’s reflection on water. Then it flinches, pops out another ten feet, and the clouds—billow away from the sphere, as though the barrier had knocked them back. Almost immediately the gray mass starts creeping back and obscures the sphere again, so its glow is muted, but the central task seems to have been accomplished: the Arashi is confined in that giant circle of light, separated from its camouflage. _What the fuck_.

“Holy shit,” someone shouts, probably Noya.

“What was that?” comes another voice, maybe Asahi.

Daichi struggles to his feet. The questions are coming his way, because the questions always come his way in moments like these, but he doesn’t have answers, he can only shake his head.

Then, two pips of light, blue and gold, appear above the stormy fray.

“Hinata,” he hears himself say, then he raises his voice loud enough for the others to hear. “That’s—Hinata and Kageyama!”

“Fuckin’ how?” shrieks Tanaka. 

“They’re on dragons. Both of them.”

“And they’re going to…” says Tsukishima slowly, like he knows how that sentence ends but doesn’t care to finish it. A strange feeling comes over Daichi, zen at the realization that this fight has just left his hands, and entered the wheelhouse of two eighteen year old boys on flying monsters. There is nothing he can do—to stop it, to help them.

“They’re going to fight the Arashi.”

He puts a hand on Tsukishima’s shoulder, then gestures for the rest of them to stand down and wait out the fight. The pips of light circle each other, looking celestial and small. Just beyond the storm, barely visible through the violent clouds and phrenetic magical light, the sunrise breaks over the horizon.

* * *

When he and Kageyama leave the beach, they fly over the still-dark ocean in silence for the first leg of the trip. The pace is fast but not so hurried they overexert themselves or the dragons—they’ll need all the energy they can muster for this fight. They’re moving slow enough that when Kageyama pulls up beside him, close enough that Kinboshi and Haizora’s wings brush every so often, he can hear his companion’s voice above the wind.

“Are you ready?”

A laugh bubbles up from his belly, uninvited. Ready? Is he _ready_? Are his palms not sweating through the tapes around his hands—he taped them because he knew they would, and because of the injury to his knuckles—and wouldn’t he be weak in the knees if he weren’t sitting down? Does his jaw not keep clenching and unclenching, as he fights to keep his attention steady on the Arashi’s island, a blip on the horizon straight ahead? Is he _ready_. 

“It’s a simple question,” Kageyama adds, without patience for his nerves.

“What do you want me to say?” Hinata manages, around a second nervous giggle.

“I’m not asking if you can do it. Either you can or you can’t, nothing changes that now. I just want to know if you’re ready to try.” Hinata’s mouth pops open, he half-turns to eye Kageyama, looking strangely placid atop Haizora, aside from his white-knuckled grip on the saddle’s horn.

“I’m going to give it everything I have.”

Kageyama nods once, firmly, lifting his chin. “Good. And then afterwards, we can stop and I’ll give you notes on your form and technique.”

Hinata blinks. Has he misheard? “Kageyama-kun, did you make a _joke_?”

“No. Shut up,” he says at once, defensive, and then he side-eyes a grinning Hinata. “Was it funny?”

“It was great! I liked it, make more.”

“You give me lots to joke about.”

Hinata laughs very genuinely this time, barely noticing how much better he feels after a short conversation; he’s not attuned enough to his own inner workings to sense himself loosening up, but he does loosen up. A ring of light begins leaking up from the horizon: the sunrise, soon, but they’re close to the island now. He can see the storm starting up around it, a strange black hole in the middle of the ocean. He shudders to think of Sawamura-san and all his friends in the midst of that—he can still hear Kageyama’s voice in his ear, after their first almost-encounter with the Arashi, _that’s the kind of storm that kills people_. 

Maybe it’s some weird extension of their individual bonds with Kinboshi and Haizora, but he swears Kageyama can _hear_ his fear, that his tone is knowing and remedial when he next speaks. “Remember what I told you? About what you need to do?”

“Yeah,” Hinata murmurs, not loud enough to be heard over the wind, but Kageyama replies as if he’d spoken right in the other boy’s ear.

“It only takes one good shot to kill a dragon. I never thought I’d be using that knowledge this way, but—that’s all you need to do.” Kageyama taps the center of his forehead, just between his brows. “One good shot.”

“One good shot,” Hinata echoes, instinctively putting his hand to the sword in his obi. He can remember making one good shot before, and it had brought him here, to Kinboshi. It does seem easier when he thinks of it that way, as just a single thing he has to accomplish. One single, very important, very difficult thing. “Are you sure you shouldn’t do it?”

Kageyama shakes his head. “You’re smaller and faster than me, and we need Kinboshi to actually get close enough.” _Smaller and faster_. _Is that a compliment?_ Hinata wonders. “It’s just the facts,” Kageyama snaps, as if replying to Hinata’s thought, even though that would be impossible. But it’s funny they were thinking the same thing.

“Okay,” says Hinata. He tries to let this reassurance that he’s best for the job fill him up, all the way to his toes. The sunrise is going stronger and with it he can feel his resolve strengthen, too. He reaches forward to stroke Kinboshi’s neck, enjoying her contented sigh at the touch of his hand and the first blush of daylight. “I’ll make it, then,” he calls to Kageyama, urging Kinboshi forward in his head. “One good shot! You’ll see.”

* * *

Minutes later he is watching the storm around the Arashi explode, Kinboshi and Haizora flapping backwards at the strength of the blast they’d created. 

He clings to the saddle, winded and soaking wet, and dizzy at how fast the scene has changed: one moment the day was breaking and they were flying through newly bright skies and the next, _snap_ , the storm was everywhere, and at its center the Arashi. He has yet to lay eyes on any of Karasuno’s team—hopefully they’ve found shelter somewhere and aren’t inside the hulking beast before them, he thinks with his stomach churning.

As the cloud cover settles around the sphere, eliminating their view of the Arashi within it, Kageyama gestures for them to move forward and Hinata guides Kinboshi down into the boiling mess. He can’t quite feel her warmth when she’s lit up like this, not the same way as when he’s bareback, but he’s confident in the brightness of her glow. He shuts his eyes against the thin layer of storm and then tighter against the familiar warm tug of the sphere’s light, the one that excites him on a visceral level, to the point of _embarrassment_ —different from last time, because somewhere on the outskirts of his headspace he feels another surge of energy, not _his_ energy, but experiencing the same surge as him. _Kageyama?_ But that… and they pass through the barrier into the clear air of the sphere and it’s over before he can think about it.

The clean, weatherless dome created by Kinboshi and Haizora’s twin blasts is larger than the last one he witnessed, maybe even two or three times the size. That’s the daybreak’s effect on the dragon’s magic, probably, and it’s good—the Arashi needs a large container, he sees, swallowing hard.

At nearly fifty meters long, it is truly a _monster_ , a giant writhing green snake’s body with six short, muscular legs and three long, blunt horns, ringed by burrs at its base. It must be old, nearing the end of its life: there are chips in the scales along its back, jagged cuts from old battles, tears in its fins. Long ragged whiskers trail from above its eyes and from its maw, which it opens to howl at them furiously—and there are the teeth, hundreds and hundreds of teeth, yellow and chipped and disgusting, making him wonder if this creature eating everything extends to it slurping ships right out of the sea. Somehow he wouldn’t find that surprising. Briefly he pities the state of it, wonders if they shouldn’t just let nature take its course, but then the thing rises up on its two hind legs and lunges for him and Kinboshi.

His dragon squawks and avoids the swipe of a claw almost half her entire size—they dive just to keep moving as the Arashi’s front half slams back down into the bay, the water turning violently under its feet. Somewhere in the corner of his eye Haizora’s glow passes on the opposite side of the Arashi, and the sight reminds him: only ten, maybe fifteen minutes of sunrise left to sustain the bubble blocking out the storm. _We’ve got to get started._ The plan. Okay.

Kageyama is on the same page: sweeping in close along along the Arashi’s haunches, Haizora shoots three bursts of flame along the base of the big dragon’s spine. It wheels around as fast as its massive girth will let it, snapping at the air above it’s back. Distraction: it’s Kageyama’s job while Hinata completes the finer portion of the mission. He draws the Arashi’s physical strength into a cat and mouse game, leaving Hinata to swoop in unencumbered; speed and maneuverability are their best assets in this fight, Kageyama told him, when they sat down several hours ago to formulate their attack strategy. _We get in close and quick and we make the one good shot that ends it_. 

The Arashi’s strength, its storm and size, are taken care of by the sphere and his partner’s good work—Kageyama (Haizora, really, he can’t get a good visual on the rider past the dragon’s blue glow) sends another series of blasts at the monster’s front legs, and it screeches in annoyance. It won’t notice Hinata sneaking, not now. Which means it’s his turn.

 _Keep me level for a minute, please_ , he tells Kinboshi, and she circles the outskirts of the sphere, waiting for a command while Hinata digs in one of the saddlebags. He pulls a crossbow bolt from one of his quivers, double knots a rope (this time willingly given) around the end, and brings his crossbow forward to load it, then settles it in his lap. _Go time_ , he mutters to Kinchan, whose wings beat powerfully as she starts back toward Haizora’s fight with the Arashi.

The Arashi’s massive head grows larger and larger in his vision, and clinging to the saddle’s horn, he lifts himself up out of the seat and raises the crossbow over his head: their signal. Assuming Kageyama hadn’t forgotten to look for it.

But he sees Haizora turning away from the Arashi. _Yes. Got it._ As Kinboshi sweeps closer and closer to the Arashi’s skull, Haizora opens his mouth and shoots out another blast—straight at the writhing light of the sphere.

 _Please don’t destroy the barrier. Please don’t destroy the barrier_. This would be the riskiest part of their plan if all the parts of their plan weren’t significantly risky. He raises his crossbow, prepared in case they succeed. The fireball slams into the wall of writhing light and, much to Hinata’s relief, swallows up the force of the impact: it pushes the barrier out like it’s sprouted a zit, shoving through the cloud layer on the other side, allowing a beam of yellowy-orange sunlight to penetrate the interior of the sphere just as Kinboshi passes in front of the Arashi’s giant, incensed face.

She catches the sunbeam with her scales and Hinata gives silent thanks that he seems immune to Kinboshi’s glare while he’s sitting atop her—the Arashi is not so lucky, the beam of refracted light that’s blinded the Nichitatsu’s prey for hundreds of years scraping across its pupil. 

The huge dragon rears back from the concentrated light and Hinata pulls the trigger on the crossbow, watching the bolt spin toward the monster, too distracted by the pain to notice. Kinboshi passes the Arashi and Hinata strains to look back over his shoulder and see if he got it— _yes,_ the arrow is lodged snugly between two burrs on one of the horns, the rope wagging loosely from it. He throws the crossbow’s strap back over his back.

The sunlight has started to fade but he sees something blue explode on the sphere above them—another shot from Kageyama. _Let’s go again, Kinchan_. His mount circles back, catches the new beam of sunlight, and shoots back toward the Arashi’s head. The monster thrashes at the sight of her, but can’t move in time to avoid the blinding punch of her camouflaging reflection. _Closer_ , he tells the dragon as they approach the Arashi’s twisting maw. _Up a little._ They are flying two feet from its eyes, the monster is screaming, hating the light, unable to recoil from Kinboshi’s speed and size—the rope is _right there,_ an arm’s length away, he reaches.

Hinata swings himself out of the saddle, feeling his throat strangled in a reflexive scream, his hands hot and itchy on the rope, their grasp the only thing that’s keeping him alive as Kinboshi disappears from underneath him. And then he’s dangling, loosely attached to a dragon’s horn over a hundred feet above the ocean. 

The Arashi moves its head and he slams bodily into its brow, trying and failing to get his footing. _Why is the sword so heavy? It’s so heavy it’s going to slip._ He can feet it dragging on his obi, but he _needs_ that sword. It takes everything he has to pry his eyes open and start climbing up the rope without looking down. He doesn’t need to look down, after all, he knows what he’d see: the hulking claws of the Arashi, the surface of the ocean like swirling concrete. Thank fuck there’s no wind up here, but the Arashi’s leathery green scales are still soaked from the storm, and in combination with the constant movement as it swipes at Haizora and Kinboshi and tosses its head (maybe irritated at the strange forehead itch), he takes what feels like an eternity to get on his feet. 

Then a swath of blue light explodes against the Arashi’s brow, three feet to his right—it’s a fucking good thing he hadn’t let go of the rope yet, because his footing slips out from under him and he cries out, swinging forcefully to the right and into the base of the horn that’s his anchor. Something pricks his side, the fucking burrs, he’ll have to be careful of those things. The Arashi breathes a huge swath of fire in response to the assault, and the resulting heat wave leaves Hinata dripping with sweat.

Before he can recover, another blast hits in almost the same spot as the last one and the Arashi screams, vibrating, Hinata shaking with it. _Fuck, are you shooting at_ me, _Kageyama?_ With each jostle he can feel the sword coming more loose from his obi, but he can’t secure it properly without letting go of the rope.

 _Okay. This time_. He climbs to his feet, rope as leverage, most of his body numb with pain or adrenaline. He wipes slicks of hair out of his face with the side of his arm, and starts moving up the Arashi’s head, away from the brow and toward the flatter top, where he might actually be able to stand. As he goes he gets the hang of balancing against the dragon’s pained twisting and rearing, and the tremors caused by its squawks. _Not so bad. Not so bad._

Another blue fireball hits the center of the Arashi’s forehead and finally, he’s high and secure enough not to get thrown around too much by it, even if he is running out of rope. And now he notices what the shots are doing—the scales around the point of impact have gone black and dry, and they smoke slightly, looking like they could crumble. Hinata’s eyes widen. Kageyama is piercing the Arashi’s armor. _He’s setting me up for the kill shot._

 _Too bad you never told him you’re incapable of making it_ , says a tiny voice in his head, but _no_ , he won’t think like that today. Today is different, it’s not about him. Today is for Kinboshi, and for Karasuno.

Looping the rope around his wrist, he plunks onto his ass, and starts edging back down the Arashi’s brow toward the patch of weakened armor. With his free hand he fumbles for the scabbard, drawing his sword, the old rusty thing. He is only five or six feet from the kill zone, now, if he could just—

He doesn’t know what causes it, but something startles the Arashi _bad,_ and it rears up with such force that Hinata has to throw himself against the dragon’s brow to keep from falling again, and his grip on the sword twists, and… and it slips through his fingers, skittering between the Arashi’s eyes and down its nose.

Hinata screams. _That’s it. That was my chance_. The Arashi’s front limbs crash back down to the earth and he bounces but keeps his balance, secured by his astonishment. He watches the sword falling, falling toward the churning sea. 

His one good shot, gone before he even had a chance to make it.

_No._

_Fall down seven times_ —

He looks up, searching wildly—there has to be something else he could use to punch a hole in the Arashi’s skull. The crossbow’s bolts would be too thin and weak, but—but—and he lights on the burrs at the base of the animal’s horns. He can still recall the prick one of those things had left on his finger, and how much trouble would it really be to pry one free if they sometimes fall off on their own?

He scrambles along his rope, toward the nearest horn. His hands shake as he tries shaking them by their spikes, testing for a loose one. The first few are solid but the third gives a little _crack_ as he pulls at it, and so he keeps shaking—just below him comes the first blue blast in a while and the Arashi lurches. His grip slips, the spike slicing through the tape around his hand and gauging a deepish scratch up the length of his arm. _Shit._ Did Kageyama see him drop the sword? How annoyed is he? Not that this is an appropriate time to be worried what Kageyama thinks of him.

Finally he breaks it off and starts squirming his way back down to the kill zone, newly weakened and smoking. He holds the burr away from himself best he can, but it’s bigger than the one he found in the cave that time and _heavy_ , so he finds himself letting it sit on his lap, which is far from pleasant.

He gets there, _finally_ , and lets the rope slip from his grasp with a grimace. His lifeline gone, but he needs both hands to do this. He crawls over the blackened patch of scales, straddling it, and raises the burr above his head like a club. The Arashi writhes under him and he sways with the motion, swallowing hard. The kill shot. He wishes he had Asahi’s brute strength, or even Sawamura-san’s or Kageyama’s. _I don’t want to kill anything_ , pipes up a little part of him, very young and small. _This is what I was trying to prevent_. But the little sun in his chest surges to life; Kinboshi’s reassurance, from where she flies somewhere below him. He has to do this because it changes things, because he makes the difference, because today is not about him—he has to kill this thing so Natsu will never know this kind of violence again.

He slams the burr down as hard as he can, burying its spikes a foot deep into the forehead, the weakened scales cracking through to the bone of the Arashi’s skull.

The Arashi jerks, a neurological tremor, the most terrible noise he has ever heard wailing from the jaws below him. He wants to clamp his hands over his ears, but instead he has to throw himself forward on to the burr to keep from plummeting to a sudden death. One of the spikes digs into his side and he gasps as he feels it punch through his clothing and break the skin underneath. _It’s not bad. It’s not deep_ , he tells himself resolutely, pulling away from the pain under his ribcage.

The Arashi is not dead. It has a burr in its brain, almost, but it’s not dead. _You need to smash it in there. You’ve got a weak point in its skull, now push_. He repositions himself over the burr and starts trying to shove it deeper, with all his strength. The Arashi twitches again and a spike stabs his side, not far from the previous wound, pain shooting through him. _Stand up eight._ He presses and presses, and for every three inches he digs the burr further into the Arashi it burrows its spikes—how many, he can’t even tell—an inch back into him. Maybe this is his punishment for killing the monster with a part of its own body—his left side has gone entire numb, he struggles to draw air into his lungs, his hands are so slick with what’s probably his own blood that he can barely grip the spikes and he has to push down with his own impaled torso.

 _I’m going to die_ , he realizes, suddenly, loudly. _There’s no way. I’m dead._ But this is not about him. He pushes harder. 

The Arashi’s skull opens up under him. Maybe if he could bring himself to look he’d see the dragon’s brain, he’d watch the fruits of his labor as he stuffs the burr down into it, killing the monster in seconds. But he can’t, can’t do that, can’t do anything. He is all pain and emptiness. The leathery creature beneath him is screaming and sinking. 

 _Don’t go down with it_. He coughs and something wet and warm bubbles from the corner of his mouth. He pulls himself off the burr: a few of the spikes had gone all the way through, into his side and out the back, so it takes a long moment to extract himself. He knows he is crying and probably screaming, but his ears ring so loudly the noises of the world are lost on him. He can’t see more than five feet in front of him—is the sphere all right? Kageyama and Haizora? Kinchan? _Where is my little sun?_

And then he hears their voices, sounding distant but somehow also as though they came from within his own mind, calling to him. _Hinata, fuck, no._ “Hello, Kageyama.” His lips move uselessly, turning up at the corners. “I can hear you.”

The Arashi is crashing down toward the sea and he is going with it. He pulls his haori, drenched,down from his side to see the damage. _Blood. I hate that_. _Sorry, Natsu,_ he thinks wearily, and his consciousness slips away.

* * *

The Arashi’s storm parts just in time for them to see the monstrous dragon fall, though Sawamura and company miss the tiny streak of orange plummeting downward beside it. This is the only part of fight they get to witness, but it is more than enough cause for celebration.

“They did it,” Asahi breathes, and their party erupts in elation. The Arashi’s weight slams down into the bay, sending up a wave that splashes them even from their viewing position on the cliffside. They are shouting—ecstatic—saved, Noya chants _Shouyou Shouyou Shouyou_ at the top of his lungs as they trample down from the cliffs to greet the heroic boys.

The rain and the wind died with the dragon. Already Daichi can see the blue sky, and the now-risen sun beaming down hope. He is not sure he has ever felt more viscerally elated in his life—happy to be wrong, happy to be exhausted, happy that he’s going to get such a fucking beating from Suga when he goes home—because he _is_ going home. 

The beach is puddley and disgusting and nearly unnavigable, but not one of them seems to notice or care. Tsukishima might actually be smiling, even if it’s just out of relief that his ass is still alive. Tanaka and Noya splash right into the surf, shouting and waving their arms, getting knocked over by the still-violent waves from the Arashi’s fall. Yamaguchi falls into the sand, lying on his back with his mouth open like he can’t quite believe it. Asahi just smiles, he grips Daichi’s arm and shakes it and smiles with a far-off look on his face, like he doesn’t know how to _process_ victory. Daichi understands that: it’s strange, such a turn from not even an hour ago, he is not sure he has the words to explain. 

“Where are they?” Noya wails, beating his fists against the water. “I’m gonna destroy those kids. I’m going to tackle Kageyama to the ground, finally, for-fucking-once.”

It’s a good question—Daichi lifts his gaze to search the sky, shielding his eyes from the sun’s glare. He spies a yellow blur coming at them, a shooting star in the middle of the morning. “There!” he shouts, pointing. “That one’s Hinata’s, I think!” It sails toward them, and he searches for the boy on the dragon’s back, but… nothing. And another thing is strange, its front legs are curled around something, a…

With its front limbs tied up, the Nichitatsu crashes into the beach and they leap away from it in the same motion. The dragon scrambles on top of his cargo protectively, and Daichi hopes for a second that he’s wrong, and it’ll turn out to be something else, but then he spies a flash of orange hair as the creature cups Hinata’s body in its wings. The others have the same feeling, it seems, the joy dying on their faces. Noya and Tanaka come out of the water, Yamaguchi gets to his feet. The dragon keeps making these sounds, over and over, tiny whimpering wails with its head bowed and its eyes shut tight. _Crying._ A crying dragon. Daichi’s stomach clenches up, his jaw tightens. 

He doesn’t even notice that Kageyama and his dragon have landed somewhere behind them until the boy is marching past him, straight for the blubbering animal. He looks worse for the wear, one of the two scabbards on his hips is empty, there are scratches along his cheeks and a huge blackened burn runs down the back of his clothes. “Kinboshi!” he barks, the determination in his voice drowning out any other recognizable emotion. “Let me see him.” The gold dragon peeks at him and whines, and he takes a firm step toward it. “Now!” With a final wail it obeys and releases Hinata—he, or his body, or his… corpse, rolls into the sand and Kageyama charges, falling to his knees and scooping the other boy into his arms. “Shit,” he murmurs. “You little fuck.”

Hinata is as pale as Daichi has ever seen a living human, and looking smaller than ever, crumpled without his aura that smacks of life. He comes to stand over Kageyama’s shoulder, and feels some of the other men crowd in closer too, though they avoid the nervous pacing of the gold one—Kinboshi, that’s what it’s called. “He’s breathing,” Kageyama mutters.

“What the fuck happened, Kageyama?” Noya demands, as usual lacking any shred of tact. Daichi half expects the boy to turn on him, but he doesn’t take his eyes off Hinata—he starts tearing at the blood-soaked clothing around his torso.

“He had to impale himself to kill the Arashi.”

“What do you mean?” asks Asahi softly. The others stand in shocked silence.

“Imagine you had to use your entire body weight to stab someone with a knife, but the knife had more points on the other end, instead of a hilt.” Kageyama successfully rips away Hinata’s obi and haori and there is the damage, the… “You’d get this,” Kageyama manages, the words almost too choked to come out. There at least five deep puncture wounds clustered on the lower left side of Hinata’s torso, welling dark and red with blood, the fluid spilling out and coating his stomach and dripping into the sand. Yamaguchi and Asahi both turn away, Tanaka shuts his eyes. “Someone hold his shoulders up while I make a tourniquet,” Kageyama orders, and Daichi steps in to help.

A small voice says, “Kageyama…”

The dark-haired boy freezes with his hands around Hinata’s haori. Daichi watches Hinata’s eyes crack open, watches Kageyama’s head turn to look at him, feels a thing he can’t see pass between, like the brush of a ghost or some spirit. None of the others were close enough to notice, probably; it is strange—above his pay grade, not a moment he should have witnessed. Kageyama’s face contorts with barely concealed agony, he must be so close to bursting.

“Don’t talk, dumbass,” he grunts, back to tying the clothes around Hinata’s side, his hands shaking. 

“It’s dead?” Hinata mumbles. Daichi notices for the first time a trickle of blood near the corner of his mouth. He’s seen injuries like this before, it’s... bad _._

“Yeah, it’s dead. You killed it.”

“One good shot,” Hinata sighs, sounding… happy. Kageyama exhales forcefully, with a shake of his head.

“One good shot.”

“Shouyou? What’s he saying?” asks Noya in a concerned whine, and he makes to try and get a little closer, but Asahi holds him back to Daichi’s relief. He doesn’t interrupt Kageyama’s work, or their whispered conversation. 

“I’m going to die, right?” Hinata lets out a surprised groan of pain as Kageyama tightens the tourniquet around him. Hinata reaches for the other boy, leaves a streak of red on his neck. “Sorry.”

“Shut up,” Kageyama spits, finishing the tie. “Shut up, I said don’t talk. You’re not. I’m saving you, I swore I would.”

“Okay...” The word fades into an unintelligible mumble on his lips as Kageyama scoops him up from the ground, easily cradling his weight. Kinboshi throws back its head and shrieks, the noise echoing down the beach and around the bay, where the Arashi’s spine curves out of the water like a forgotten mountain.

“Where are you taking him?” Daichi asks, also getting to his feet. He is lost right now, on how to lead them well.

“To Suga-san.” Kageyama doesn’t look at them but keeps striding down the beach with Hinata in his arms, toward where the black dragon sits, its head lowered seriously. 

“And you’re going to—”

“I’m taking Haizora. He’ll get us there fastest, and we don’t have much time.” He lifts Hinata into the saddle and swings up behind him, supporting the other boy’s dead weight with his arms. “You all can make it back in the boats. Kinboshi will follow me.” He casts a glance out at them, his comrades, and nods; only then does Daichi see a flicker of how young he is. When he said he expected Kageyama to stop being a child very quickly, in a single day, he hadn’t anticipated that the day would be this one. But the tone in his voice as he speaks is the tone of an adult, and one who understands he has the barely-flickering flame of a young life nestled between his arms, a flame to be kept from going out. “Wish me luck.”

Daichi stares at him—they all do, speechless. He wonders briefly if everyone else is as awed and terrified and proud as he feels right now. “Good luck,” he says, his voice cracking. And then from behind him comes a soft chorus of well-wishes. _Good luck, good luck, good luck, Kageyama._ Kageyama does his best to a bow around Hinata’s slumped figure, and then the dragon beneath him shoots off, a black bullet streaking across the early morning sky.

 

 


	5. impossible

_Why didn’t you save me?_

There’s a certain awful pallor people get when they are dying: face fogged with grey, old blood clotting patchily under the skin around half-closed stinking wounds. And the fat and muscle start to drain off, bones show, the hollows of the eyes grow deeper.

But the Hinata in his dream isn’t that Hinata—this isn’t the Hinata lying on a bed in the back of Suga’s shop under constant supervision, barely breathing; not the Hinata he visits quietly, compulsively, without anything to do but sit there and hug his knees to his chest and watch the stubborn rise and fall of that small chest; not the Hinata most people have already begun mourning. 

The Hinata in his dream is whole, or closer to it, staring at him with eyes glowing the color of Kinboshi at sunrise, little fiery suns, no pupil or iris or white, only—flame. His skin flushes ruddy— _everywhere_ , he is stark naked—as if he had blood to spare, and he sits cross-legged opposite Kageyama inside one of Kinboshi and Haizora’s spheres of watery light, the Arashi’s storm raging beyond the barrier.

“Why didn’t you save me, Kageyama-kun?”

When he speaks his breath curls out of his mouth in a golden fog, glittering. Those eyes, non-eyes, suns where eyes ought to be, are unnerving. They don’t bore but _burn_ into him.

“What are you doing here?” he manages to ask, panicked because in this dream he has nothing, no composure or control, he is at the mercy of this eyeless glowing Hinata. “This is _my_ dream,” he protests, and the Hinata sits forward on all fours, crawling toward him. “What are you?” Now he sounds like he is begging, crying begging, shrinking away in terror from this creature that approaches him with supernatural disgust etched into his face. “Please,” he cries. The voice that comes out is the voice of a child, _his_ voice from years ago repeating words he’d said back then: “ _Please. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to…_ ”

The Hinata opens his mouth but his lips don’t move; his voice comes from nowhere and everywhere at once. _Why didn’t you save me, Kageyama-kun?_ He rises on his knees and brings Kageyama’s face level with his torso, the injured side where his wounds would be, but instead there is a sucking black void, blurry-edged and sentient. _You are selfish! You are unkind!_ It reaches out for Kageyama, strands of shadow shooting at him, winding around his head and into his mouth and nostrils and suffocating the scream out of him. He feels himself crying out noiselessly and falling, falling as the sphere fades away, falling like he’d watched Hinata fall, so limp and helpless and beyond reach. He has the strange sensation, one of those impossible feelings only dreams can mirage, of making the same lurch forward he’d made that day in the storm—of reaching out from Haizora’s back as though he might catch the other boy, as both he and Hinata plummet toward the thrashing ocean a hundred feet below.

_Falling, not falling, I'm afraid to fall..._

And as he goes the faces of the other villagers materialize around him: Sugawara and Sawamura, Nishinoya and Azumane and Tanaka, Kiyoko and Yachi, Hinata Natsu, Ukai-san and Takeda, Tsukishima, Yamaguchi. They are all blurs of disappointment and grief, shaking their heads, turning away from him. _They wish it had been me and not him._ He strains against the wetness in his eyes, wondering when he will meet the ground, if he’ll ever wake up from this nightmare. He had done what he could, he wants to yell at them, but he is moving too fast. He had _tried,_ he had buried a sword in the dragon’s neck, but that… that may have thrown Hinata when the beast reared back, and perhaps he could have anticipated better, could have caught Hinata’s blade when it fell, could have done a single thing worthy of the fact that he’s still here, and Hinata is nearly gone. _I wish it had been me too. I’m sorry_.

He hits something and trips into consciousness, in that strange way one does in a dream—but after a moment of gratitude, of thinking he has finally woken with a start and he can settle back into a more peaceful slumber, he notices he’s not nestled on the low bed in the corner of his home. He’s… sitting upright, having tea at a little table in a garden courtyard, with… Hinata.

Hinata, with real eyes, and wearing all his clothes, and no smoke monster consuming his side. 

“Took you long enough,” he grumbles, and his voice is its normal, slightly squeaky tenor, and Kageyama feels lightheaded.

“What are you talking about?” he asks; he doesn’t see how Hinata could have been waiting on him, considering just a moment ago he’d been suffocating him.

“I just had to sit here while you had that weird guilty dream. Which is _not_ my doing, by the way.” He wags a finger at Kageyama. “That’s all you.” Kageyama gapes at him, since… since isn’t this dream _all him_ too? Why does he feel so awake—awake enough to understand that Hinata is a figment of his imagination, a projection of something within him? “So where are we?” asks Hinata conversationally, eyeing his tea with suspicion.

“This is one of the courtyards at my father’s house,” he answers, without thinking. “Or, it was one.” He had barely stop to assess it but yes, he recognizes the lovely enclosed walkways surrounding them, he can almost hear the clink of a spar in the yard and a lady’s voice singing distantly.

“ _One_ of the courtyards? How many courtyards does—did—your father’s house have?”

Kageyama’s gaze had wandered, but now he turns back to Hinata and is struck again by how vivid he seems, unnaturally real for a dream. “Shouldn’t you know? You’re just in my head. Rustle up the memory and see.”

“Just because I’m in your head doesn’t mean I _become_ you,” Hinata replies, rather indignantly.

“But you’ve always been me. You’re a part of my imagination.”

“I am not, I’m Hinata!”

Kageyama stares at him. He says this with such conviction, and he looks so fresh and whole with color in his cheeks, it’s not right. He’s gone from guilty-fueled terrors to fantasy. _I wish you were Hinata. I wish Hinata were this alive_.

“Am I dead?” he asks, voice cracking, replying as though Kageyama had spoken out loud. “I can’t be dead…” Fear swarms his voice, his eyes well with tears. “I don’t remember anything, but that doesn’t mean I’m dead.” Even though it’s false, Kageyama’s own fabrication, Hinata’s terror makes his stomach tighten in sympathy.

“The real you isn’t dead, not yet—”

“I _am_ the real me!” Hinata insists, bracing himself on the table.

“You aren’t, this is a dream.”

“But I’m here, this is where I am, I just… woke up here! Drinking this weird stuff!” He lifts himself up further, shoving the teacup toward Kageyama. That’s strange, him not knowing what tea is—or remembering his father’s house—that would only make sense if… he’s Hinata. “If it’s a dream, it can’t be an ordinary one, not if we’re both having it. Am I asleep in real life?” _If he’s awake he’ll be in pain_ , Suga had said. _So I’ll give him a draught, and he’ll sleep until he’s well._ Remembering this explanation means remembering his sense of helplessness when he’d received it, and it’s a moment before Kageyama can nod. Hinata sits back, as if this revelation had thunked him in the chest. “The only part of me that’s awake is the one in your head,” he murmurs. Kageyama’s fists clench. 

“There’s no part of you in my head.”

Hinata glances at him, puzzled. “Kageyama…”

“That would be impossible.”

“You felt it happening, didn’t you?”

Kageyama shuts his eyes, tries to block this out, but it is coming back to him in an oversaturated flood: Hinata’s fall, the pain as he lay on the beach in Kageyama’s arms, the desperate cling to life on the long flight home. _I felt it._ As himself, and a second time, as Hinata—he had _heard_ Hinata’s last words in his head with the clarity of his own thoughts, he had weakly opened his eyes and stared up into his own face and felt comforted in what he believed to be his final moment, he had struggled to drag air into his lungs and let his hand be pressed to his bleeding wound. He has two sets of memories for that day, two patterns of anguish, more than he can take. He thinks it might all begin to leak out his ears, all this extrasensory contradiction, and when he opens his eyes he finds that he is weeping uncontrollably, very real tears, whether or not this is a dream.

“If you die,” he heaves, looking up into Hinata’s face, softened and open with empathy. “A part of me dies too.” _I’m afraid for you, and I’m afraid for myself,_ he thinks, knowing Hinata will hear him. He can feel those very large, intense eyes on him, and he waits for the sound of Hinata’s voice in his head but it doesn’t come. _You can’t think because you’re asleep_.

Hinata nods. “The psychic thing only goes one way right now. I think I’m… I’m like an echo, like the trace of me that’s still left in you even though the main part of my spirit is—is sleeping.” He smiles faintly. “So I suppose if I died, I would just fade away from you. It wouldn’t hurt at all.”

 _No._ “That’s not true.” Kageyama watches him carefully over the table, somehow continuing to cry but not feeling the tears leave his body, only the wetness of his face; dreams are strange. He still hasn’t quite figured out what this is—a psychic commune between him and the fragment of Hinata’s spirit riding on his own? _Impossible_.

“Kageyama.” He snaps to attention at the weight of Hinata’s tone. “I think there’s a reason this is happening right now, that you’re having this… dream, or memory, in this place.” His father’s house. “And that I’m here, too.” Speaking to Hinata in his father’s house. He squeezes his eyes shut—Hinata doesn’t even know who his father _is_ , and his father would never have had anything to do with Hinata, in life or death. 

“What reason?”

“Am I recovering normally?”

Kageyama bows his head instinctively. His head is filled with the image of that pallor, the grey face and clotted skin, the smell, the little bit of happy weight melting away. He wonders if this Hinata, the echo of reality, can see himself dying through Kageyama’s eyes, the way Kageyama had seen himself looking on uselessly through Hinata’s. He doesn’t know healing like Suga, but he has brains enough to notice the grimness of the apothecary’s expression whenever Hinata’s condition is mentioned, and he can still hear the older man’s voice in his ear when they first returned, shouting to keep Natsu away, not to let her see. “I’m not sure,” he replies, quiet, but he can tell from the way Hinata’s face darkens that he knows enough of what Kageyama knows to put two and two together.

“Maybe there’s something you can do to save me.” Kageyama winces. _I wish. I’m powerless here, I can’t will you better._ “I’m not kidding, I think there’s something else wrong with me.”

“No,” Kageyama says, starting to cry again even though—even though he isn’t even _sad_ , dreams are so strange—he turns away from Hinata and the table between them vanishes. “No, there’s nothing I can do, I don’t know how to help you.” Hinata starts crawling toward him, closing the space between them, and it is _just like before,_ he can see the sun start to come into Hinata’s eyes.

“Kageyama, please!”

“I can’t, I don’t know how, I can’t—”

Hinata’s voice crunches and sours. “ _Kageyama, why won’t you save me?_ ”

The ease of his father’s garden slips away around him, and he is back in the Arashi’s mess, as if it had been here the entire time just waiting for him to fall back into guilt. Hinata reaches for him, his eyes now consumed by fire, a trail of golden smoke from his mouth—as his hand cranes toward Kageyama the skin turns to scales, the same yellow as Kinboshi’s, and the nails grow long and sharp like claws. _Kageyama_. The voice in his head is monstrous, surely not Hinata’s, but his lips are moving in time with it. _Why won’t you save me? Selfish! Unkind!_

He scrambles away, sobbing, and loses his balance at a ledge he hadn’t even known was there—and he tumbles over, just like before, plummeting through darkness— _I hate to fall… I hate to fall_ , he cries out over and over—until he makes impact with something invisible, a collision that shakes his body down to the hairs on his arms, and he starts awake.

This time it’s real. He’s sitting up in his bed in the small second room of his home, naked as he always is for summer nights. His nose still aches vaguely, and his face is wet, apparently that part of the hallucination had leaked into reality; he wipes his cheeks on the back of his hand. There is light just starting to come in through the windows—of course he’d have a dream like that at sunrise, when else?

Kageyama falls back to the thin mattress, eyes closed. He hasn’t seen Haizora in days and it’s making him restless, and the dreams were so vivid, his sleep had been fitful at best. He feels like he barely rested at all. Dumbass Hinata, annoying even in the afterlife.

No... not the _afterlife_. Not yet. Shit, his side aches thinking about that.

He rolls over to start getting up, and his side still hurts. Maybe he’d bruised it somehow, training or something: for the past week, since the battle, his usual skills have been… off. He sighs and gets up, moving into the oncoming light from the open window, so he can better see if a bruise has formed—and he swears at the sight of what’s there, and scrambles to find his clothes.

* * *

Sugawara Koushi is not an angry person.

And so he feels, he really does, like he is living in someone else’s skin lately. It isn’t like his insides to churn at the slightest thought of another person or the remembrance of a thing—it isn’t like him to drag himself over the coals again and again, to remind himself what he could have done _better_ , all in the name of reasonability, but really he just needs someone to _blame_ , and he himself is the most readily available target.

No, that sort of self-deprecating obsessive thought isn’t like him. Or, he _wishes_ it weren’t like him.

The events of a week ago live too colorfully and readily in the front of his mind. He remembers desperately trying to keep Hinata from losing any more blood, having the very vivid thought that there is no way he’ll ever come back from this. He remembers stepping out of the apothecary after the first wave of surgery, just wanting the fresh air, his arms stained red up to the elbows. He remembers that he had seen Daichi in the street, then, coming back from the fight; and the glimmer of elation he felt at Daichi’s wellness was swallowed up by the lingering image of a boy slowly dying in his care; their eyes had met at a distance, and Suga turned away from him. 

Blame is a funny thing, the way he rotates between carrying it all himself, then throwing it all on Daichi, then accepting they are both at fault—and then back to that overwhelming self-deprecation. After all, if he had only pleaded a little harder, if he had moved a little faster, Hinata might be well right now. He might’ve arrived back to Karasuno and kneeled to greet his sister on the beach. He might’ve never left at all.

Regardless, he hasn’t looked a single one of those six men— _boys_ , some of them—in the eye since they arrived home, since he turned his back on Sawamura. They saw him at his most vulnerable, he had begged them to stay, and now—and now Hinata lives, or he dies. There are no conversations to be had, only shame for them to feel, though none of them will feel it as deeply as him. The dragon is dead: they’d done their job. Now Suga, the healer, must do his. 

The odds of his success seem about as daunting as the odds of defeating the Arashi once had. He’d scrounged for that silver lining, but he’d found it—he needed one to keep the smile on his face when he passed Natsu in the street. At first the little girl wanted to stay in that house by herself, but he’d insisted she go into Kiyoko’s care. It’ll make the transition easier, he thinks, if things take a turn.

Suga rolls over in his bed, temporarily moved to the front room of the apothecary while his own sleeping space serves as an infirmary. The morning sun peeks in through the window and he eyes it sleepily, pulling himself off the mattress.

“Good morning, Shouyou.” 

No response. He always waits a moment before entering, just in case; the draught Suga had made was enough to put Hinata in a lull, not completely unconscious but numb to the world and the pain—but if he got a little better, he might be able to shrug himself back into full sentience.

But he isn’t getting better. Suga pads over to the bed where his small figure lies, and pulls back the blanket from his body. Every morning he cringes anew at the sight of Hinata like this, as though overnight he’d forgotten how frail and ill the boy is. The stunted, sickening wounds form a pattern on his thin torso: if it heals, he’ll have quite the scar, a sort of lopsided five-point star. 

As he changes the dressing on the wounds he thinks what he thinks every time, keeping in mind how much blood was lost, and how slow the healing progress looks, and how the color of his skin is what you’d find on corpses: this child should not be alive right now. It’s impossible. Sometimes Hinata will go four or five seconds between drawing a breath and Suga will freeze, staring, waiting—but he always draws another, he always goes on. He should be dead, but his unwillingness to accept defeat runs deep, to his very bones, to his still-thumping heart. If it were Suga, his body would’ve shut down long ago, but not Hinata. Hinata Shouyou persists. Hinata Shouyou wants to keep living.

Suga manages with the usual difficulty to force a little food down his throat and clean him up, and he takes the dirty bandages out into the yard to wash, sitting on the back steps with his bucket. The sun has risen, daybreak is over.

“Sugawara-san!”

His stomach drops at the sight of Kageyama marching importantly toward him. He looks odd—he’s not wearing a kimono under his haori and hakama, Suga realizes. The other men do that in the summer, sometimes, but never Kageyama. It gives him an aura of frightening disheveledness, and it’s out of the ordinary.

“Kageyama. Good morning.”

“Suga-san,” he repeats, heaving deep breaths as he stomps into the yard. Out of the ordinary has been ordinary for Kageyama this past week—the fifteen minutes he spent flying his bleeding comrade home seem to have taken their toll. Suga squints up at the wild-eyed boy over his wash pail.

“Everything all right?”

“No!” Suga pales. Kageyama tugs at his haori, his motions frantic enough that he can’t get it open at first, but then he pulls back the fabric to reveal the lower left side of his torso.

Where there are five dark purple bruises, in the pattern… in the same pattern of the wounds Suga had dressed not ten minutes ago.

Suga’s eyes widen, and he sits there stricken, not knowing what to say while Kageyama just—gestures frantically at the strange injuries.

“Suga-san!”

“Did you… did you take a fall?”

“No, and look at how they are, Suga-san, the way they’re—they look _just like_ —”

“I know what they look like,” Suga snaps, dragging Kageyama closer to him to get a better look; from his seat on the steps he’s eye-level with the strange bruises, for which there ought to be a normal medical explanation, though a voice in his head screams only one word over and over: _magic._ “They look deep, like you might be bleeding beneath the surface of the skin. Only...”

“Are you kidding?” says Kageyama, maybe trying to disguise his fear by glaring down at Suga, but the truth of how he feels creeps in around the eyes. “I’m going to die because—because Hinata is dying?”

“You’re not dying.” Suga brushes a finger over one of the patches and earns a hiss from his patient, but the results are worth it: he sees the substance beneath the skin stir, like disrupted smoke. “That’s not blood. Whatever is making those things appear is magic.” He glances up at Kageyama’s scowl. “Spirit magic, I think.” The flight home—Kageyama’s strange response to the tragedy, how often he’s visited Hinata in silence, as if not even he knew what brought him there. There’s only one explanation.

“No,” Kageyama mutters, pulling away from him. “It can’t be that.”

“Have you thought of Hinata much lately? Is he in your head? Or have you had any strange dreams about him?” Kageyama turns his back, and Suga gets to his feet, frowning, suspicion creeping through him. “Before he was injured, did you ever have any moments where you felt like you could hear his thoughts?”

The answer is yes, that much seems clear to Suga—but he says quiet waiting for Kageyama to reply. Best to let him admit it on his own; the process of reconciling oneself to such a change can be difficult, he remembers, and it would be even more so if you realized you were bound to a life that’s ending. Another pang of guilt pricks him—all the more reason to be ashamed of his failure to save Hinata. 

Finally Kageyama turns back to him, his mouth a trembling line, and such pain clawing at his face that Suga shudders. “I don’t want this. He’s going to die. A part of me—is going to die.” When he inhales, the breath shakes his chest, and his voice knots in his throat. 

Suga’s gaze falls to the dirt. _My fault_. “I’ve never seen a soutai connection strong enough to cause mirror wounds.” _Why is that? Why is it so strong?_ But this isn’t his laboratory for spiritual research, Kageyama is no test subject. He has heard of soutai people losing their partners, how painful that process can be. “With that kind of bond, the effect Hinata’s death might have on you… it’s an unusually strong bond, and it could have an unusually strong impact.” Suga lifts his head to see Kageyama with his eyes screwed shut, and a careful hand laid against his own side.

When Kageyama opens his eyes again, he doesn’t look at Suga but past him, into the apothecary. Thinking of Hinata, undoubtedly. “Are you sure?” he murmurs. “That we’re…”

Swallowing hard, Suga lowers himself back to his seat on the back stoop. “They say when it happens through trauma, you get a double memory.” He fishes out the bandage he’d been washing from the bottom of the pail, where the water is slowly turning muddy red. “Do you have that? A double memory of the battle with the Arashi?”

Kageyama only stares at him, but the grief on his face answers in the affirmative. Suga sighs.

“When your spirits enter peril, they reach out for one another to survive, and they get tangled.” He starts to scrub again, eyes on his work instead of Kageyama. “If you put two pieces of metal together, nothing would happen. But if you did it in Azumane-san’s forge, under heat, the edges might fuse. Trauma to spirits is like heat to metal.” Once he had given Hinata a similar talk, in this very yard, and now he and Kageyama have gone and become it. “People talk about soulmates. Sometimes soulmates are born, more often they are made. Or earned, rather. That’s soutai.” Suga summons the strength to look up from the pail, and meets Kageyama’s unnerved gaze with a weak smile. “So I suppose congratulations are in order, Tobio. You and Hinata are soutai.”

“You’d congratulate me for being bound to a dead man?” 

“Maybe he won’t die!” Suga hears himself raise his voice, as if to drown out Kageyama’s insistent anger, he is smiling so hard it hurts. “You don’t know that!” He reins himself in, wincing. “I know it’s difficult, I’m not trying to tell you your future is painless. No future is. But behaving as if you don’t have one is unkind—” Kageyama flinches at that word. “—to Hinata, and to yourself.”

Head bowed, Kageyama pauses to reflect on this, and then asks, “So what would you have me do, right now?” He gestures to the bruises on his side. “While I’m like this?”

Suga blinks a time or two. A good question. “Go talk to Asahi and Nishinoya.” He can’t pretend to be an expert on these things, and the weight of the conversation has started to make him ache.

“Why? Because of the metals?” demands Kageyama, and Suga remembers—he doesn’t know. And Asahi and Noya probably wouldn’t take kindly to being outed.

“Just… just tell them your situation, and show them the bruise.” He offers Kageyama another smile, with some great effort. “The worst that could happen is Noya making a joke.”

Kageyama gives him a long look, and even Suga—who really prides himself on being able to read looks—can’t sense what’s running through his head. “Sugawara-san.” He sounds… calm. Strangely. Kageyama Tobio only descends further into strangeness. “Would you say that Hinata is recovering normally?”

Suga is thrown back half an hour ago: _he shouldn’t be alive, not like this_. “He’s… not really healing.” Kageyama draws a deep breath. “But he’s not dead either. And by all reasonable assessments, he shouldn’t have survived this long.” Kageyama nods slowly; Suga can’t tell if he’s cheered or not. As far as he can tell, Kageyama has never _liked_ Hinata, but now… it doesn’t matter. Perhaps he hadn’t chosen Hinata for his soutai, but he had chosen to fight alongside him, and it’s a decision that will radiate through the remainder of his life. It is not that he’s squirming against some immovable, fickle device of fate that threw them together; Kageyama and Hinata had bled for this privileged connection. It’s a reward, in its own right. 

“I’ll go to the smith’s shop later, then,” Kageyama announces, turning his heel and heading out of the yard.

Suga frowns at his back. “You aren’t going to go see Hinata?”

“No. I’ll see to it there’s plenty of time for that later.”

* * *

Kageyama hears Nishinoya before he sees him: his laugh carries all the way down the street from Azumane’s forge, a raucous but not totally unpleasant noise.

He went home and got properly dressed before heading here, hoping that exerting some control over his life (even in this small sense) might give him the illusion of stability, when everything else has gone to shit.

Soutai. Him and Hinata. A month ago he’d held a sword to the other boy’s throat, called him a traitor, threatened to ruin him. And now they’re, what, bound for life? For as long as Hinata lives—maybe not much longer. He doesn’t know which to be more upset about: that this happened with _Hinata_ , or that it’s going to end before he ever got to experience it. He’s going to suffer for something he never really got to have. Something he never even _wanted_.

He doesn’t really see what Azumane and Nishinoya could have to offer by way of comfort, but he trusts Sugawara, he’s known him the longest of anyone on this island. And so he stalks toward the forge, the sound of Noya’s laughter and the banging of hammer on metal growing louder. 

He finds Azumane working at the anvil in only hakama and leather apron, his bare back and shoulders sweaty and sooty; Noya sits perched on a table just out of the heat, toying with his tanto and watching Asahi work and chattering; they both pause at the sight of Kageyama in the doorway to the forge.

“Kageyama-san,” says Azumane politely. “Can we help you?”

Kageyama swallows, eyeing the two of them. He itches under their gazes. They both like Hinata so much, he remembers. _They wish it was you instead of him._ “Sugawara sent me.”

“Oh, does he need something?” Nishinoya asks, motioning for Kageyama to join them inside. He edges into the building, and slowly lowers himself to sit on a trunk, half of him just waiting to be scolded. But Asahi just keeps hammering the axe head he’s working on, then holds it up with forceps to examine more closely.

“No. I’m supposed to talk to you.”

“Talk to us!” Nishinoya snorts, tossing Asahi a grin. Asahi ignores his friend’s amusement and gives Kageyama a warm smile.

“That’s fine. What would you like to talk about?”

Noya settles back in his seat, still grinning, and Azumane places the axe head in a barrel of water to cool. Kageyama glances back and forth between the two of them, a buzz coming over him— _I’m nervous_ , he realizes. What a strange feeling, not so different from what happens when he flies, but he’s simply talking to these two men, who he’s known for many years now. “It’s about me and Hinata.” The grin slides off Nishinoya’s face, and he exchanges a look with Asahi, who sets down his hammer.

“All right,” Asahi manages, with Noya’s eyes boring into him.

“Suga-san thinks we’re soutai now.”

He hears Noya exhale sharply, and Asahi lowers his head, eyes falling closed. For a moment it’s quiet in the forge excepting the rumble of the fire at Asahi’s back. _I’m getting more nervous_ , Kageyama notes, hands tightening around the fabric in his lap. He knows they know what soutai _is_ , he heard them talking about it that one time, when Hinata had learned the word—even though Noya’s behavior had seemed oddly obtuse, and Asahi’s oddly detached, they must understand his meaning.

Finally, Noya laughs humorlessly, drawing Kageyama’s stare. His eyes appear strangely lit, his mouth twisting as he looks at Asahi. “And Suga sent you to us?”

“Noya,” says Asahi softly, with a shake of his head. “It makes sense.” Noya glares.

“You want him to hear all of this?”

“I want your permission to tell him.”

“Tell me what!” Kageyama snaps, increasingly frustrated that he feels like he’s missing a big chunk of this conversation. Asahi glances at him and Noya doesn’t even flinch, still scowling at the blacksmith. He expects them to keep arguing but they just—sit there _staring at each other_ , it’s truly unnerving on top of annoying, being kept out of the loop. Kageyama folds his arms over his chest and huffs; why has he become so friendly with powerlessness lately? What god or spirit is playing this trick on him?

“All right,” Noya says loudly, after the strangest pause, making Kageyama wonder if he had gone temporarily deaf and lost part of their dialogue. “Go on, tell him all you want.” Asahi is smiling, if sadly, as he turns back to a bewildered Kageyama.

“Nishinoya and I are soutai as well.”

Kageyama’s lips part dumbly. Oh, _they’re_ soutai, so Suga had probably… and just now, they might’ve been—talking, psychically. _They must think I’m an idiot for not figuring it out sooner. I would think that, if I were them, if me and Hinata…_ “You’re soutai. How long have you—”

“Ten years!” Noya grunts. “Isn’t that right?” Asahi nods. 

“That’s…” Ten years. They’ve lived with each other inside one another’s heads for ten years—Kageyama never would have guessed, he finds himself peering at the two of them curiously as if he might find the physical evidence he’d missed, somewhere in the way Nishinoya puffs up his chest or Asahi hunches slightly while he works. But they only look as they always have. Kageyama massages his temples. “So Suga… he wants you to tell me about it? Being soutai.”

“I think so, probably,” Asahi agrees, bracing himself against his workstation.

“How did it happen to you?”

Noya snorts. “Straight to the point. All right.” _Is that a very personal question?_ he wonders, and then he thinks of his own double memory and shivers. Of course. Noya hops down from his perch and starts to pace around the shop; there’s no agreement that he’ll be the storyteller, or at least not an agreement Kageyama hears. “Well, I was… your age, actually. And if you think I’m stupid now, you should’ve seen me then,” he laughs, tossing his tanto in the air and catching its handle on a fingertip. “I wanted to be famous—a famous dragon killer, they all made loads of money and had so— _so much_ sex, all the time.” Asahi laughs, Noya sticks out his tongue. “This was on the mainland. Me and Asahi are from Kyoto.” _Kyoto_ , Kageyama mouths instinctively. It’s been a long time since he thought of that city.

“I’m from just outside of Kyoto, actually,” Asahi adds. He goes about some cleaning while Noya pouts at him.

“What’s it matter, for the story?”

“Just being accurate.”

“Anyway,” Noya continues, nose in the air. “Asahi and I were… friends.” The corners of Asahi’s mouth turn up. “He’d just finished up his apprenticeship, and I dropped out of training to pursue my dream. There was this rumor about a really nasty beast up north a ways, terrorizing a little town.”

“Datekou,” Asahi supplies, eyes on his hands.

“Yeah.” Noya’s smile wans. “Datekou. So I said to Asahi, ‘Make me the best knife that’s ever been wrought, and we’ll go up there and I’ll kill this dragon with just that, and we’ll be legends.’” That kind of ambition reminds Kageyama, with a little fond flurry, of Hinata. And then he remembers where Hinata is, and his stomach sinks. _If you die, a part of me dies too._ “So he made me this.” Noya spins his tanto again. “And we went to Datekou.”

At this point in this story, Nishinoya pauses and watches Asahi scrub soot off his axe. They might be talking, but somehow Kageyama doesn’t think so. His expression is unusually quiet, for Nishinoya.

Kageyama asks in a low voice, “What happened at Datekou?” Nishinoya smiles absently at Asahi before turning to him.

“I was an idiot,” Noya scoffs. He returns to his seat with a defeated plop, glaring. “I went into an impossible fight barely armed. It wasn’t an Arashi, but it was bad.” He sheathes his knife.“We killed it, but people died. Asahi almost did too. I… saved him, I guess, but it was my fault that he was there in the first place.” Asahi’s hands slow around his work. “I nearly lost a leg. We got run out of the village, and out of Kyoto. We met Suga because he was the only healer we found who took pity on us and patched us up. And he told us about Karasuno.” Noya shrugs, determinedly nonchalant. “And we didn’t look back.”

Asahi frowns at his friend, his… partner. He undoes the tie on his apron and retrieves his haori from a hook, while Noya gazes at the forge’s hard dirt floor, rubbing his chin. Normally Kageyama would struggle knowing what had them brooding, but following a story like that—even what must be a truncated version—it’s hard not to understand. _It’s been ten years and they’re still fucked up about it, and they both lived._ So what does Kageyama’s future hold?

“When did you know you were soutai?” he asks, shifting in his seat. He doesn’t like sitting here, listening to horror stories, contemplating his own doom. He wants to move, to do something about it.

“When?” Asahi glances up. “I mean… we could hear each other’s thoughts, so we figured it out pretty quickly.”

Noya grins, eyes rolling back with the memory. “We knew something was weird, but we hadn’t actually heard of soutai. So Suga figured out why we were panicking and explained.”

“Why was Suga there?” Kageyama demands—he can hear that this isn’t the right way to ask the question, but he can’t help sounding tense.

“When he was a teenager he spent a few years studying on the mainland.” Eyeing him, Noya lifts an eyebrow. “Isn’t that right around when _you_ and Suga met, too?”

He feels his face go red at the inquiry. Nishinoya hadn’t meant it as a jab or a leading question, probably, but how many people know about his… origins? Not Hinata, apparently. Growing up here he’d assumed it was an open secret, or that they kept quiet to protect him, but nowadays he isn’t sure. He ducks his head to stare into his lap and suspects they are talking about him.

“Kageyama,” Noya announces, rather awkwardly, as though he had been _pressed_ to do so. “How do you know you and Shouyou are soutai if…” Kageyama raises his head. _If he’s unconscious and halfway to death?_ Noya doesn’t finish the question, he doesn’t need to.

Swallowing hard, Kageyama gets to his feet, the movement drawing wide-eyed looks from Azumane and Nishinoya. He silently pulls back his haori and then the the edge of his kimono, to show them his side.

“What the hell?” Noya murmurs. Asahi’s frown deepens.

“Kageyama, is that the same as—”

“It’s a mirror wound.” Noya and Asahi exchange a puzzled glance.

“So you’ve got the same thing as Shouyou? Shit.”

“Suga says it’s not life-threatening.” Covering himself again, careful not to brush the strange sensitive bruises, he lowers himself back into his seat. “But I wanted to know, if you had ever…”

“No!” says Noya, leaning back like the thought bowls him over. “That’s wild, I’ve never heard of it. Most me and Asahi can do is have a conversation, and only when we’re in the same room. And I can sort of tell when he’s around. And,” he adds, giving Asahi a strange twinkling glance that Kageyama doesn’t care to unpack. “There are other things, little things.”

“What did Suga say about it?” Asahi asks, coming to sit beside Noya.

“He said that Hinata and I have an unusually strong connection.”

The pair exchanges another look. _I hate that,_ Kageyama thinks bitterly. _Hinata and I will never be like that._

Noya bobs his head, considering. “Well, sometimes connections are stronger in people with opposite characteristics. Soutai is about completeness and balance, you know. Two spirits that fit together to make a whole.” So Noya had been bluffing when he’d acted like he had only a vague understanding of the topic. It seems obvious now.

“Are Hinata and I opposites?” he asks, in total earnest, but from the way they stare at him he thinks he may have accidentally made a joke again.

Noya starts to laugh, Asahi batting at his arm to get him to stop, while Kageyama glares at them in confusion. “Yes,” says Asahi, with Noya burrowing into one of his arms, consumed by giggles. “I would say that you and Hinata are opposites. Not totally, but... have you never noticed that before?” Noya’s laughter makes Kageyama’s face grow even warmer, and he only manages to shake his head.

“What are the other little things? That you get with your soutai?” he asks, mostly because he wants this part of the conversation to be over and he doesn’t know how else to move forward. At this question the laughter dies in Noya’s mouth, and he peeks up at Asahi from one of the blacksmith’s burly arms. Asahi greets him with a smile, even Kageyama finds that comforting.

“You want to be around your soutai.” Noya’s face scrunches, looking at Asahi. “Their presence feels different. It’s not even that you couldn’t live without them, only… life wouldn’t be the same. They have a little piece of your spirit, and you need your whole spirit to experience everything fully.” Asahi exhales and his breath stirs the hair across Noya’s forehead. “It’s like being the poles of a magnet, you want to be stuck together.” So that must be why Nishinoya lives here, in the forge, and not on his own. And it must be why he can’t stop himself from visiting Hinata sometimes, even if it is only to sit in the corner and stare at his unmoving body.

“And what would happen if your soutai were to die?”

Asahi and Noya start, turning to him, their mouths open. They had forgotten, probably, hadn’t really heard what was being said and how it would sound to Kageyama. Like nothing will ever be the same, once Hinata is gone. His chest hurts. _I didn’t even want this._

“I don’t know about that, Kageyama,” says Asahi hoarsely. Noya’s eyes fall to the floor. “I’m sorry. Maybe, with the right kind of healing from Suga, you could—”

“It’ll hurt, but you’ll live,” Noya interrupts, altogether more frank and realistic. It’s appreciated in this moment.

“All right,” Kageyama grunts, getting up. He doesn’t feel particularly cheered at the prospect of losing a piece of his spirit, and he’s wound himself past the point of asking questions. “Thank you.” He gives them a bow. They’re wearing identical scowls watching him.

“If you have any more questions, please ask,” Asahi offers weakly. Noya makes a noncommittal noise, possibly in agreement.

“I will. Goodbye,” he says flatly, with a second and final bow, and then he sweeps out of the shop.

He’s about halfway down the street when he hears Nishinoya’s voice again, this time calling his name. He turns and the short man bounds toward him, catching up.

“Wait, wait, there’s one more thing I want to tell you.”

About how wonderful it is to have a living soutai? Kageyama glances sideways, not disguising his annoyance.

Nishinoya taps his temples. “In here, you can learn to control your soutai connection. Start meditating and envisioning a door, or a screen, with Hinata behind it.” This piques Kageyama’s interest, against his wishes.

“What does that do?”

“If you can visualize blocking out your soutai, you can block them out for real. That’s the nice thing about all this psychic stuff.” Noya grins up at him, the smile disarming. “Sometimes we all need a little privacy. Once you’ve got your soutai behind that screen, you can open it when you want to speak to them, and close it once you don’t.” His smile falters a little. “I guess it might be different when it’s as strong as it is for you and Shouyou.”

“I can do it,” says Kageyama flatly, and Noya laughs, for whatever reason. “Will that keep him out of my dreams?”

“I don’t think so.” _He didn’t even ask why I’d been dreaming about him. That must be normal._ “Dreams are sort of the mind’s badlands. No rules.” Noya flaps his hands, as if this demonstrated ‘no rules.’

“Thank you, Nishinoya-san,” he says, turning to go again. All this talk of soutai has him itching to see Hinata. 

“Shouyou is a really good kid.” He freezes and looks back to Nishinoya, whose large eyes size him up determinedly. “Stronger than anyone has ever given him credit for. But you know that better than any of us, I’m sure.” Kageyama wants to nod, but he struggles to move. A smile curls into Noya’s lips. “Whatever happens, try not to start blaming yourself. Speaking from experience, it’s hard to live with, and you have enough problems in your life.”

Finally he gets out his nod. Noya gives him a quick bow, then turns on his heel and trots back to the forge. _But you know that better than any of us_. He thinks of the flight to the Arashi’s island and that mantra of _one good shot_ and how Hinata had seemed to mutter it under his breath, to keep himself going. Strength is a funny thing: not always describable, but often irrefutable. Kageyama inhales deeply, unglues his feet from the ground, and starts for the apothecary.

* * *

The stain isn’t coming out. Daichi has scrubbed the saddle for an hour every day this week, left it out in the sun, tried all the combinations of soap and water and oil he knows. And it could be years before they can afford to have another one of these shipped from the mainland, a saddle is beyond the technical skill of Karasuno’s craftsmen. Which means that Daichi gets to live with a constant reminder of that day, the dark mark creeping down from the pommel all the way to the stirrup, where Hinata had bled out as Kageyama flew them home.

He sighs and gets up from his work, leaving the saddle on a rack in the sun to dry—he can hope maybe it’ll fade when it’s not wet, at least. What an ugly metaphor.

The week has dragged on in ugly metaphors: the horses seem to scatter when he comes near, the yard sits in silence as they move through half-hearted training, the blood won’t wash out of the saddle.

He doesn’t visit the village; he doesn’t feel welcome there. Every time he stands in the street he sees Suga ahead of him, covered in blood, turning away. _As your superior, I can’t forgive this._ To think he’d anticipated their thankful reunion—but that was before he’d seen Hinata, before he knew what had happened. What he’d done.

Because Daichi _had_ done it. He knows the others well enough to understand that there’s a lot of blame circling the village right now, most of it self-inflicted. Daichi can’t imagine what Kageyama must feel, with the sort of standards he holds himself to, but it’s not deserved when he’s personally responsible for the only fighting chance Hinata still has. And Suga… surely he can see this clearly, surely he knows he isn’t at fault. He _should_ know. But Suga’s heart is so large, it worms its endless compassion into places it shouldn’t. Daichi leans back against the barn, staring down the path to the village.

 _I want to see him._ To apologize. But Suga wouldn’t have him, not now, he’s sure of it. _I want to see him, but he doesn’t want to see me._ He wants to think that their friendship was nice while it lasted, to take away something good, but in truth all he’s left with is a feeling of dissatisfaction—they should have done _more_ together, they were just getting started—and a bad taste in his mouth. 

He spies a rustle of movement from the farmhouse: Ukai coming outside.

“Sawamura!”

“Sir.”

“How are you?” Ukai asks, frowning as he comes to sit on a bench by the barn. _Lie,_ says a voice in Daichi’s head, with authority.

“As well as I could be, all things considered.” Not even a very _good_ lie.

Ukai pulls his pipe and tin of tobacco from his obi and starts about the machinations of lighting his smoke. “Have you spoken to Sugawara?”

And he’d been hoping for a distraction. “I haven’t,” he replies lightly, as though Ukai had asked if he’s eaten lunch yet.

“But you will.”

Daichi shuts his eyes. That has the ring of an order. “I’m not sure Sugawara is interested in a conversation with me, sir, and I respect his wishes.” Ukai glances up from working on his pipe, eyebrow quirked. He sees right through that excuse, even if it’s true.

“Work it out. Your partnership is good for Karasuno.”

Their partnership… isn’t it irrelevant, now? Aren’t the dragons supposed to leave them alone now? Not that he knows how to ensure that; if Hinata doesn’t make it, the pressure on Kageyama will be enormous. In reply Daichi merely nods.

“I didn’t come to talk to you about that, though,” Ukai sighs. Rather expertly, he lights his pipe with a flint, takes a long drag, holds it in, and then exhales as he speaks. “The damage from the Arashi is done. We don’t have enough food to make it through the winter.” Daichi bites his lip, he’d been afraid of that. “So it’s time to start calling in favors.”

“Favors,” Daichi echoes.

“Well, maybe not _favors_ per se.” Exhaling another puff, Ukai waves a hand. “But our leverage. We have a little.”

“Are you talking about…”

Ukai gives a single, short nod. “I want you to talk to Kageyama about going back.”

* * *

He leaves Hinata’s side half an hour before sundown, though it’s more difficult to drag himself away with the impending strength that time of day holds for them. The only thing that gets him out of the apothecary is the thought of where he’ll go instead: into the hills, to visit Kinboshi and Haizora.

He trudges up the forest path, chewing his lip. As early as the flight home, he had told Haizora in their special private way that he and Kinboshi should lay low for a while. No one is ignorant of the fact that Kinboshi saved Hinata’s life, but the additional stress of two dragons joining their community might’ve disrupted an already delicate situation. He knows this has been difficult for the dragons—he can feel Haizora’s restlessness and frustration, as surely as he feels his own, and he has even begun to sense Kinboshi on the periphery of his mind. _Because Hinata and I are soutai, and Kinboshi imprinted on Hinata._ So they are in some kind of bizarre spirit square, them and the dragons.

Kageyama emerges into the rocky hills and climbs down into the cove. Haizora is waiting for him, sitting upright on the lake shore, and the first thing Kageyama does is stroke the dragon’s nose. It’s calming, to both of them. Until Haizora turns and glances at Kinboshi, then back to Kageyama. _Something wrong_.

Kinboshi hadn’t moved when he arrived; now she lies in the shadow of her favorite sunning rock, her eyes half-lidded, head on the ground. She might be thinner than the last time he saw her, too.He approaches the gold dragon cautiously and, when she doesn’t pull away, crouches beside her. “You’re sick because Hinata is sick.” He used to make fun of Hinata for talking to them like that, but now… someone has to do it. “I can sympathize,” he tells her, and swallowing a pip of anxiety he reaches out to lay a hand on her shoulder.

The dragon exhales long and slow—she feels warm to the touch, not physically but mentally, the… the same way it does when he touches Haizora, or sits with Hinata in that small cramped room, but warm instead of cool. He glances over his shoulder and sees that Haizora is watching the two of them tensely. It truly is a bizarre spirit square, isn’t it?

Oh, it’s—the _dragons_ —stung by realization, he flings himself back from Kinboshi, gasping. His and Hinata’s soutai is powerful because it’s a fucking— _double_ soutai bond, or something, they’ve inherited the dragons’ soutai as well.

He sits on his ass in the cove, staring up at the sky, mouth open. No wonder Hinata is having trouble healing, he’s got not one but _two_ little chunks of his spirit missing—one for Kageyama, and one for Kinboshi. Finally the golden dragon lifts her head, looking at him sadly, and when she opens her mouth a tiny puff of golden smoke curls out. _Just like Hinata in the dream._ No wonder…

He clambers to his feet, heart suddenly pounding, not sure if his legs can take him to the village fast enough. It’s nearly sundown and he needs to do it then, he feels that strongly, for whatever reason. “Kinboshi, we need to go to down there,” he pleads with the gold dragon, as he stumbles backward to climb onto Haizora’s back. “Please. I’m taking you to see Hinata.” At that she lifts herself slowly, struggling against the weakness of her own body, and stretches out her wide golden wings.

Some minutes later he is carrying Hinata’s limp body from the apothecary to the village square, the orange sunset bathing them in light through gaps between the houses, Sugawara at his elbow.

“ _Kageyama_ , I’m begging you, please be careful with him—”

“I’m being careful!”

“Why do you have to _move_ him?”

“The dragons are too big to fit anywhere else in the village.”

“The _dragons_ ,” Suga repeats in a whimper.

They come into the square and Kinboshi and Haizora are waiting—along with at least two dozen terrified villagers, who stand huddles in alleys and doorways looking on. One of them fidgets like he wants to dive for the dragon bell, but it’s two feet from where Haizora sits upright awaiting his human, and when Kageyama spies the man moving in he barks, “Don’t even think about it! They’re not hurting anyone.”

“This is mad, Kageyama,” Suga murmurs; there isn’t time to explain to him, not right now. At the sight of Hinata in Kageyama’s arms Kinboshi gives a strangled howl. She pads toward them, her footfalls heavy and clumsy, but Suga still backs away. This is the closest he’s ever been to one of the animals, it’s understandable enough.

Kageyama kneels and, _carefully_ as Suga had demanded, lays Hinata on the ground in front of Kinboshi. He has a feeling everyone around him expects he knows what he’s doing, and so he tries to look the part when really he is just… hoping. That is a strange feeling, for him. To have faith instead of certainty. It fits him oddly, a little too tight around the chest, but in this case there’s nothing else he can do.

He pulls the bandages away from Hinata’s abdomen, exposing the unsightly wound, leaving him half-naked but for the hakama on his lower half. The dragon hangs over his body, and seeing how small and bloodless he is, she lets out a wail. Kageyama senses the audience around him flinch at the noise. 

“Nii-chan!” 

Oh, no.

As he spies Hinata Natsu in the crowd, surging toward them, Suga drops forward to whisper in his ear. “Kageyama, she hasn’t seen him, I haven’t let her—”

“I know, I know!”

“Why are you giving him to the dragon!” the little girl pleads, making for Kageyama, until Suga catches her by the shoulders and pulls her back. Kinboshi has begun to glow in the brilliantly dying sunlight, and she ducks her head toward the injury, releasing another wail. It is a sympathetic noise, but a pained one too—she can feel Hinata’s agony in herself, like Kageyama can see it in his side. “Please, please,” says Natsu’s voice behind him. “You said you would protect him!”

Kageyama turns; her face looks so much like Hinata’s, like Hinata had looked in his dream, pleading with him, asking, _Am I dead?_ “I’m sorry, I tried—”

“You’re going to let it get him,” she cries, kicking against Suga’s hold on her.

“She’s not going to hurt him, Natsu,” Suga tries, but she just kicks harder. She is so much like her brother, Kageyama thinks, feeling dazed by the revelation. So stubborn.

“I don’t believe you! You tried and you _failed_.”

The way she’s looking at him makes Kageyama want to sink into the earth, because she is right, he had indeed failed and—he is trying again. Because it’s what Hinata would do, and he can’t lose to Hinata. He turns back to the dragon and his soutai, as that lovely spiritual warmth swims over him. Kinboshi is staring at him and he knows, viscerally, what he needs to do.

He reaches out and takes Hinata’s small, cold hand in his own. For all his visiting late into the night he had never gotten close enough to touch the other boy, his soutai; he suddenly understands what Noya had said about wanting to be stuck together. Hinata’s skin is like nothing he has ever felt, except maybe his vague recollections of silk. He could touch him forever, even just his hand, it’s… it should be impossible to feel such a thing. He murmurs, back at Natsu, “Just watch.”

Kinboshi, lit up like a flame, opens her mouth above the pattern of wounds on Hinata’s side. His breathing matches hers, timid and shallow, as she exhales out that curl of golden smoke Kageyama had noticed before. It floats down over Hinata’s skin, drawn to the red, half-clotted wells as iron filings to a magnet—Kageyama watches the iridescent air sink into each of the punctures.

What happens then brings tears to his eyes, though he thinks it must be that he can feel whatever it is Kinboshi is doing, too, through their linked fingers: the holes in Hinata’s side shrink, collapsing in on themselves, part of the tissue turning to scar and the rest of the gory inside seeming to drain, scabbing over, as though two or three weeks of healing had passed in an instant. Hinata doesn’t wake up but his back arches off the ground, and he and Kageyama gasp at the same time, Kageyama grabbing at his own side with his free hand, which aches but not unpleasantly.

It ends and Hinata sinks back down. Kageyama loses his balance and has to brace himself with his palms in the dirt, letting go of Hinata. The intense feeling fades immediately.

“What did she— _oh_.” That’s Suga’s voice over his shoulder, closer than before. “That looks…”

“It worked, I think,” Kageyama wheezes, still struggling to compose himself. 

“It did, how—”

“I thought maybe his spirit was weak from being splintered again—first being connected to Kinboshi, and then to me.” Kinboshi settles down beside Hinata, nudging them together with her tail. “So if I brought the three of us together, he would be stronger, and he could heal. But I don’t know what she did with her breath.” 

“Nii-chan?” Suga had freed Natsu in his astonishment, and she crawls toward her brother and Kinboshi; Suga makes as if to hold her back again but Kageyama raises a hand to stay him.

“No, it’s all right.”

Natsu slows as she gets nearer to Kinboshi, eyeing the creature suspiciously but not stopping. The dragon watches her with bright eyes; she already looks healthier being near her human, and certainly happier for it. And she doesn’t even blink at Natsu—she must understand that this little creature belongs to Hinata, in a way. Natsu leans over her brother and pushes the hair out of his face. “Nii-chan.” She keeps her eyes determinedly upward, away from his lower torso; even partly healed and much better than they were a few minutes ago, the injuries are still an ugly sight, particularly upon first glance. “Is he going to be all right?” she asks, twisting to look at them.

“Now he is, yes, I think so,” says Suga, smiling. “I think he’ll wake up soon, once he’s feeling up to it.” Kageyama nods mutely. Natsu turns back around, but this time her eyes are on Kinboshi and not Hinata.

“Thank you.” 

The dragon stares at her, then lowers her head. A bow. 

“He needs to stay with Kinboshi,” Kageyama tells Suga quietly, so as not to disturb Natsu and her brother.

“There’s nowhere the dragon can go, though, and we can’t just leave him outside like this.”

Another voice fills the square, and Suga jumps out of his skin: “Take him to the barn, the aisle is wide enough.” There is Sawamura Daichi, standing not so far off, his mouth a hard line. “I’ll give you a hand, Kageyama,” he says, marching toward them. Suga gets to his feet and starts brushing dirt off himself, turning away from the new arrival. “And then we need to talk.”

* * *

It’s another hour and a half, well into the dark of evening, by the time Kageyama is sitting alone in the stableyard and Daichi finds him. They had carried Hinata together with Kinboshi and Haizora flying overhead; at one point Kageyama turned around and Suga was gone, taking Natsu with him, and he’d remarked on it to Daichi but gotten no response. They put Hinata in the aisle, on a bed of burlap and old blankets, and let Kinboshi curl up beside him. Kageyama doesn’t understand what swells in him when he looks at that small figure now; he had thought if Hinata got better he might feel less overwhelmed, but he is as stricken as ever at the angles of his chest and his small waist and chapped lips.

Eventually Suga returns, declaring that he needs to see his patient, though Kageyama is confused as to why the clarification was necessary. Daichi stands off to the side with his arms across his chest, and Kageyama wanders out to visit Haizora, sitting on the log where he usually rests during training, stroking his dragon and feeling calmer under the moonlight. The firelight from the lamps around the barn gives him a little visibility, but most of it is that. The light of the moon.

When Daichi joins him, he comes to sit on the other end of the log wordlessly, watching Kageyama interact with Haizora. The only emotion Kageyama can get off him is exhaustion. 

“So.”

“So,” Kageyama murmurs in response. He has no clue what Sawamura expects of him, really, but he’s a competent person so it can’t be too awful.

“I had a chat with Ukai-san. Apparently Karasuno won’t survive the winter with the resources we have, because of the damage from the Arashi.”

Kageyama stares at him, the colors in their faces muted by the darkness. Haizora sighs under his touch. “And… me? I’m supposed to…”

Daichi blinks a few times and swallows hard. Showing nerves, that’s unsettling from him. “Ukai would like you to visit the mainland, and—” _No._ “—visit your family, to maybe—” Absolutely not. “—throw yourself on their mercy.” 

“No.” 

“Kageyama,” Daichi mutters hopelessly.

“What makes you think I have any sort of sway with them?”

“I think… what Ukai-san was saying, was that you might have some leverage.” Kageyama turns away from him, bristling, and Haizora matches his annoyance with a grunt. “Something along the lines of, ‘Help us and I’ll stay where I am,’” Daichi says. He sounds half-hearted.

“That’s not throwing myself on their mercy, that’s blackmail.”

“I know…”

“You don’t like it either.”

“I like eating,” he replies sharply, eyes narrowing. “I like Karasuno. I understand that we have no other options.” _Selfish! Unkind!_ He wants that voice out of his head. It’s so strange what one remembers after so many years, even when the memory easily fills him with loathing and dread. Daichi continues, more softly, “A journey that could take us a week would take you a day on Haizora.”

“I don’t fly without Hinata.” Excepting… extenuating circumstances.

“Then… then we can wait a few weeks, while he heals.”

Kageyama gazes into Haizora’s almost-radiant blue eyes instead of meeting Sawamura’s. His family, like you could even call them that. _You people are my family. Not them._

Daichi opens his mouth, about to pursue another argument, maybe, but he never gets his chance to speak.

“Hello? Hello!” Suga, from the entrance to the barn, panting. They both turn to stare. “He—Hinata’s awake!” And sure enough Kageyama feels a tug at his spine, something crackling into life there. His soutai.

He doesn’t have a word for what it’s like to see Hinata awake again. He had almost forgotten the color of his eyes, and the shape of his smile as he sees Kinboshi, and how healthy his skin looks when it’s not gray. He is sitting up, though Suga _tsks_ at this and pushes him on to his back again. Daichi rushes right into the stable to kneel at his other side, across from Suga, with Kinboshi peeking down at her human’s face. But Kageyama finds himself hanging back by the door, his breathing suddenly difficult, knowing he is at the beginning of something that will follow him the rest of his life. Does Hinata feel it too? Kageyama calls up the screen in his head, he’s been practicing with it—and he slides it to the side, opens the door. Hinata is awake now, conscious, he could… _Can you hear me?_

The other boy flinches in his bed of blankets and burlap, and his eyes fly to the doorway where Kageyama stands, his face a blank slate. Hinata’s mouth falls open, his gaze widens in surprise.

**Hello?**

* * *

“Slow down, I’m supposed to be helping you. Suga says you’ll open up the wounds again.”

“Then Kinchan can heal me again!”

“I don’t think that’s how it works.” 

“Ugh, Kageyama-kun.”

It has been eight hours since Hinata woke up, and Kageyama is tired and decidedly grumpy as he trails his soutai down the narrow path to the spring where the village has their baths.

Hinata didn’t sleep a wink through the night, but of course, he’d been asleep for a week. And because he didn’t sleep, Kageyama didn’t sleep—Suga and Daichi had left, eventually, _separately_ , leaving Kageyama to stay up and explain everything to Hinata. How their soutai connection had formed, the double memory, all that Noya had said about opposites and magnetic poles. He’d explained the shared dream and after a long moment, Hinata had remembered it. And he’d watched Hinata processing, felt the echoes of amazement in his head as he understood.

**What’s even the point of talking out loud?**

“I don’t want to use the psychic stuff too much,” Kageyama grunts, hoisting the pail of rags Suga had lent him under his arm. He slides the screen shut, boots Hinata out; he was grateful to discover that soutai doesn’t mean Hinata gets the entire transcript of his thoughts—even with their peculiar bond, he gets impressions of Hinata’s emotions, and whispers of thoughts, the loudest of which he can make out. If he thinks passionately or strongly or imagines himself raising his voice in his head, Hinata will hear it. But whatever passes harmlessly through his mind is just white noise.

“I think we should use it a lot!” So cheerful, and still so _fast_ , even though from the way he moves down the path and from the psychic tightness Kageyama feels around him, it’s obvious the wounds continue to cause him pain.

“Let me _help you_ ,” Kageyama says through his teeth. He catches Hinata’s arm, finally, and they both flinch—it’s surprising still, that flash of sensational lightning when they touch, and how easy it feels to keep their skin pressed together, no pressure or grip required. It gives him that same brush of cool he gets from Haizora, and at the sun’s rising and sinking. Sighing happily—he must get a similar feeling—Hinata allows his arm to be pulled around Kageyama’s waist, and they keep moving, slower now, Kageyama careful of Hinata’s side.

“Sorry I smell.”

“That’s why we’re going to give you a bath.”

“ _We?”_

“Suga told me to help you. You’re not supposed to move too much.”

“Yuck,” says Hinata, but he’s got a big grin on his face. Kageyama can feel his happiness seeping out of his pores; happy to be alive, to be breathing the air and feeling his feet on the ground, and to be touching Kageyama. He catches that last thought just barely and glances down and sideways at the other boy, whose eyes fall half-closed in drowsy pleasure. Maybe after the bath they can sleep.

The spring runs along not too far into the forest behind the farmhouse and its outbuildings. It’s slow-moving and more than deep enough to accommodate bathing; at the end of the path, the dirt widens into a clearing, where the water forms a deep side pool.

“Can you undress yourself?” Kageyama asks when they arrive, and he gets a sour look in return.

“Yeah!”

“Okay, good.” Kageyama turns his back and starts to slip off his own clothing, piling it neatly on the ground. He sort of begrudges that he’ll have to bathe too—he prefers to do that alone—but he could use it, anyway: he hasn’t had one since he washed the blood off himself after bringing Hinata back here. 

Hinata starts to hum a song, a folk ballad about a princess. He really is astonishingly happy for someone who nearly died, who remains in a lot of pain, who just got bound for life to a person he’d sworn to defeat. _Is he not even a little upset about being soutai with_ me _, of all people?_

“I don’t think it sounds that bad,” comes Hinata’s voice, behind him; Kageyama turns to find the other boy, now naked, grinning at him. Shit. The screen thing still needs work, apparently.

“Hmph.” Kageyama finishes pulling off his hakama and fundoshi and pulls the pail with the washcloths over to the lip of the spring, as Hinata goes about lowering himself in, hissing as the water slides up his torso and over his wounds.

“How long is it gonna take before I’m all-the-way better?” Sinking into the spring, Kageyama shivers, finding it colder than he expected. But the day is warm, and ultimately, it’s a good feeling. He starts wetting one of the washcloths.

“I don’t know, it depends on how fast you heal now that Kinboshi has done her… thing.”

“So we really don’t know what it is?”

“No. She’s your dragon, you’d know best. Give me your arm.” 

Hinata squints at him, then extends his hand toward Kageyama, who takes it and swallows hard. He starts to stroke Hinata’s skin with the damp washcloth, from his palm to his elbow, and his elbow to his shoulder. He can feel himself scowling in concentration, immersed in the tacility of muscle and bone, the look of freckles under pale wet hair.

“I could probably do some of this myself.”

He glances up. Hinata’s cheeks are red. **Embarrassing**. He can see it so clearly—that’s good. He has never been good at reading other people’s emotions, but now, with Hinata, he understands everything.

“You don’t like it?”

Hinata’s little pouty mouth pops open, and he turns to look off somewhere else, like the trees have grown fascinating. “No. It’s… fine, you can keep going.”

“Then give me your other arm.” So he does, and Kageyama starts up his detailed preening again.

“Kageyama-kun.”

“Mm.”

“Everyone saw Kinchan heal me, right?”

He lifts his eyes from his work again, and sees Hinata chewing his lip. “Yes.”

“Do you think,” he continues absently, peering up at the sun coming through the trees, “they believe me now? That dragons are good?”

Kageyama pauses as he finishes up Hinata’s other arm, then slides around behind him to start working on his back. “I think it might change some minds. I don’t really know yet.” He wipes the skin between Hinata’s shoulder blades and watches him shudder, not minding that so much.

“I want to change _every_ mind.”

 _Ambitious_ , he thinks. **So what if I’m ambitious?** Now it’s Kageyama’s turn to shudder, shit. That’ll take some getting used to.

“Our whole nation has been fighting them for centuries. We kill them for sport most of the time. That’s not right.” Kageyama slides the cloth over the nape of Hinata’s neck, where his orange hair is damp and dark. “I think I can do it.” His head half-turns, to peer at Kageyama behind him. “You’re my soutai, so you _have_ to help me, right?” 

“I don’t _have_ to do anything.” He resents that notion, that he owes anything to—anyone, to Karasuno or to Hinata—except that Karasuno has been his refuge, and he nearly let Hinata die. He squeezes his eyes shut, then thrusts the washcloth forward. “Here, you do around your stomach and your… lap area.” 

Hinata accepts it and obeys, and Kageyama sinks beneath the surface to wet his own hair. When he comes back up, Hinata’s voice is a whine. “I thought we were supposed to stick together. Will you at least come to the mainland with me or something?”

_Sawamura wants me to go to the mainland too, damn._

“He does?” pipes Hinata, wheeling around in the water and slapping Kageyama in the face with the washcloth. Nasty.

“Don’t move so fast, you’ll hurt yourself.”

“But he does, _why?_ ”

“To get us food for the winter.”

“How are you gonna do that!”

“With my leverage.”

“What’s leverage?”

Something that Nishinoya had never said, probably because Kageyama was meant to find it obvious: there are no secrets in soutai. Hinata stares at him expectantly, excited, and there is… there is nothing Kageyama can do but tell him the truth.  

“You have to promise not to freak out,” he says quietly, reaching for Hinata’s ankle to start on his legs. “Or tell anyone.”

“I promise, I swear,” he says, still with that ridiculously big grin. Will he still be smiling two minutes from now? He acts like it’s a surprise on his birthday, like he wants the reason to involve dessert somehow, while Kageyama’s stomach is churning. Sensing his seriousness, Hinata’s grin shrinks an inch. “I won’t tell anyone. I promise,” he says again. _Fine. Fine, fine, fine._

“Okay, so.” Deep breath. “When I came here—”

“When you came here?”

“Yeah, I was—you were seven too.”

Hinata blinks rapidly. “You weren’t always…”

“You didn’t know I wasn’t born on Karasuno?” he asks, scowling. Hinata sinks up to his chin in the water, the tips of his ears going red.

“No. I didn’t remember that, I thought you were just—really antisocial as kid, or something?”

_Dumbass._

**I’m sorry!**

“Whatever, I don’t think Ukai-san wanted to make a big deal of me coming here,” he sighs, scrubbing at Hinata’s shin under the water. “I was born on the mainland.”

“Like Noya-san and Asahi-san?”

“Sort of. My father was… important, and then he died, and I had to come here.”

“What kind of important?” asks Hinata with a tilt of his head.

“Do you remember the old shogun?”

“Hm, yeah, did he work for him?”

“No.” He lets go of Hinata’s leg and stares at the bubbles rising as it falls back toward the bottom of the spring. “He _was_ the old shogun.”

At first he decides he doesn’t want to look up and see Hinata’s face; he has never really understood where this aspect of his upbringing fits in a larger schema, and so there’s no appropriate response, there never is. Maybe it _is_ exciting, something to be thrilled about—he has never had that sense of it, especially since what little privilege it afforded was taken away from him, but he feels oddly naive offering this information to another person. He wants to add, _So what do you think? Can you please tell me how to feel about this?_

He lifts his chin: there is Hinata, open-mouthed, staring back at him. **A PRINCE.** _No_. The moment their eyes meet, Hinata plunges into the spring, submerging his head, and comes up shaking and spraying water everywhere—bewildered, Kageyama recoils.

“You’re a prince!”

“I’m not, shoguns aren’t imperial—”

“But you’re _something_ special!” Hinata cries, splashing wildly, much to Kageyama’s annoyance.

“I’m not anything, the shogun is a military commander appointed by the emperor.”

“But he’s in charge of everything, right? And they’re always from the same family!” Family. _Selfish, unkind._ Scowling, Kageyama stands and makes for the lip of the spring, feeling like he’s had enough of bath time. “You could be the next—ruler of Japan,” Hinata chimes, flopping onto his back in the water. “And you’ve just been hanging out on Karasuno all these years!”

“The other half of the story is that my father died and I got shipped here. So the chances of me being the next shogun are slim.” He climbs out of the water and peeks under his arm to find that Hinata is trailing him, clambering out with awkward attention to his bad side. Hmph.

“Why! Shouldn’t you be—training with samurai, and, and learning _war tactics_ —”

“Why, because of politics, and other shit I’ll never be good at.” Kageyama digs through his pile of clothing for his kimono and starts tugging it on, though he’s still soaking wet. Noya was definitely wrong about always wanting to be around your soutai.

“Kageyama-kun, if you were shogun, they’d have to listen to me about the dragons!”

He swings around, prepared to tear into Hinata, because that’s about the most absurd fucking thing he’s heard in his life, but—a wave of pain hits him, Hinata’s pain, and he sees that the smaller boy is struggling to dress himself, grimacing as he attempts to tie his fundoshi but somehow still utterly devoted to their argument. Pushing himself.

“Shit, stop that,” Kageyama mutters, lurching to help him tie off the underwear, and then step into his hakama; Hinata puts a shaky hand on his shoulder and sticks each foot into the legs carefully while Kageyama holds out the garment. They do this in silence, outwardly and inwardly, until Kageyama straightens up and finds Hinata’s large eyes peering up at him.

“At least take me with you to the mainland.”

“I was already planning on it, if I go.”

“Then I think we should do it,” Hinata offers with unusual softness. “Together. We’re the most powerful soutai of all time, right? We can do it.” Something reaches between them, a thread of spirit, a reassurance beyond most comforts he knows.

“All right,” he murmurs, his throat tight. “We’ll go to the mainland.”

Hinata cracks another one of his whopping grins, and takes Kageyama’s arm to be helped back up the path to the farm. Kageyama grabs the rest of his clothes, and as they go he can’t help what passes through his head: _the most powerful soutai of all time… I wonder what Oikawa-san will think of_ that.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there has been so [much](https://twitter.com/TinyRiverStory/status/621115439989403648) [amazing](https://twitter.com/emuyrh/status/621856010081169408) [ART](https://twitter.com/RYUKOMATOl/status/620361259284856832) [drawn](https://twitter.com/meyochoo/status/621003123864174592) [for](https://twitter.com/unterseebrot/status/622820087867813888) [this](https://twitter.com/noranb829/status/620995480336490496) [fic](https://twitter.com/carriecmoney/status/623666019878440960), and a few of these artists have done more than one thing for it so i highly encourage you to go check out their other works. this isn't even the full sampling, i will put even more in the next chapter's AN.
> 
> a note about historical accuracy: this fic isn't set in a particular year or anything, it's more mean to resemble and feel like feudal japan than represent its history. so, none of the stuff about shoguns and their lines will refer to actual historical personage - they play a big part in the story, but they are made up.
> 
> i really appreciate all the support and positive feedback! it's getting to the point where i can't physically respond to every comment, but i read them all and they often make my day, and i thank you very much for sticking with me even after i impaled hinata. it means a lot.


	6. the rubicon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies for the delay on this chapter; in the past 2 weeks i went on vacation, moved (still doing this actually), and started a job hunt. my brain was monopolized by real life for a bit, but now i return happily to dragons.

“Kinchan and I match now, Kageyama-kun. Have you noticed?”

“Yes, I’ve noticed. Please put your clothes back on.”

“But it’s _hot_!” He twists to look at Kageyama—the shade is pooled around his soutai, sitting at the foot of a tree in the stableyard—but there’s a pang in his side and Hinata turns back right away with a wince.

“Be _careful,_ Niichan,” Natsu scolds from where she’s rubbing Kinboshi’s belly in the middle of the dusty yard. It’s been two weeks since Kinchan healed him, and he feels almost his normal energetic self, but the skin around his injuries remains stiff and sensitive even as the punctures scar; the puckered, sunken star in the tissue of his abdomen looks more and more like Kinboshi’s every day. 

“See, Nacchan?" He stretches out the dragon’s wing and gestures to it, and then to the similar mark on his naked torso, trying to win his sister’s attention. "See what I mean?” 

But beyond reprimanding him, Natsu seems more interested in the dragon’s puppy-like response to attention: on her back, feet in the air, purring and wiggling in the dirt. 

Hinata pouts and shuffles back over to Kageyama, who’s sitting with his elbows hanging off his knees. He offers Hinata his haori back and Hinata ignores him; even in the shade it’s too hot for shirts. Not that Kageyama-kun would agree, being fully dressed in two layers of clothes even on a day like today. What a strange person, and even stranger to think they’re going to spend the rest of their lives together, in some sense. It’s a blessing he’s never been good at looking ahead.

“At least she’s taken to the dragons,” Kageyama offers, tossing his jacket back into the grass. Hinata nods, humming his contentedness: with their departure for the mainland delayed by his healing process, they’d set up visiting hours in the stableyard, and encouraged all Karasuno’s villagers to come and meet Kinboshi and Haizora for themselves. Initially this resulted in a lot of sitting around with their dragons and practicing meditation, but then Hinata had confessed to Nishinoya-san that no one was coming, and their loud, persistent friend (despite not seeming too enthused about dragons himself) began dragging anyone he could get his hands on to the farm. 

So far Noya and Suga and even Asahi, reluctantly, had befriended Kinboshi, and Noya had guided the hands of a blushing Ennoshita-san through petting the dragon for the first time. Haizora had been altogether less social, but his habit of napping in the shade by Kageyama had its own power of reassurance. More people came and observed at a distance, not comfortable enough to approach. 

But, as Kageyama persists in reminding him, the people of Karasuno have been well-taught to fear these creatures. When they come to the stableyard, it’s a huge first step. Hinata will have to be patient. Ergh.

This afternoon, though, it’s just him and Natsu and Kageyama, and the dragons. Natsu’s friendship with Kinboshi heartens him maybe more than any of the other progress they’ve made. He doesn’t know how it happened; from where he stands now, watching her lazily play with the dragon and laugh, it’s a miracle.

“It’s because she saw Kinboshi heal you.” He glances over to Kageyama, whose eyes are on the grass. _Are you listening to my thoughts?_ “Yeah, you’re too loud, even in your head.” Hinata pouts down at his slumped figure.

“When are you gonna teach me that thing with the screen?”

“I already did, you’re just too stupid to pick it up.”

Hinata pulls a face. Meditation techniques take a lot of focus he doesn’t have, not when the world is waiting for him to change it. “Aren’t you supposed to be nice to me now that we’re soutai?”

“Don’t say that word so loudly, I don’t want your sister to hear,” Kageyama mutters, glancing at Natsu and Kinboshi's game. Natsu's melodic laugh carries, you could probably hear it on the mainland. “Anyway, I don’t see what our psychic soul bond has to do with me being nice.” Hinata sighs and turns away from him. There are worse things than being tied to Kageyama Tobio for life, but it doesn’t help that he’s more standoffish now than before they fought the Arashi. Over the past two weeks he’s become better at shielding his thoughts from Hinata, and his demeanor seems more like how you’d treat a business partner or a fellow soldier than how you’d treat a friend. If this really is _forever_ , Hinata thinks, they should try to be friends. _I kind of thought we already were._

He glances down, to see if Kageyama had overheard that particular musing, but instead he’s glaring at the path toward the village. 

“Great.”

Hinata follows his eyes: there is Tsukishima, longbow over his shoulder, shuffling toward them with a scowl. 

“You two are here again.”

“Yeah, so?” Hinata says, hands on his hips. He can only stand so many unfriendly tall people in his life.

“You’re monopolizing the space.” Tsukishima eyes Kinboshi and Natsu, still playing in the middle of the stableyard. He hasn’t been among the people to visit their dragons. “Are we never going to train again? Is that it?” Hinata bristles, but Kageyama’s voice cuts him off.

“Training—to fight dragons, you mean?” He stands slowly, careful of the katana at his side. Behind them, Haizora lifts his head.

“I suppose, yes,” Tsukishima mutters.

“Sawamura hasn’t called for training because we don’t fight dragons anymore,” says Kageyama. He has the strangest aura coming off him, sad and serious but a hint thoughtful too. Hinata peeks at him sideways, but there are no more clues in the stony expression on his face. Haizora makes a low sound, and Kageyama raises a hand in the dragon’s direction to calm him. Tsukishima scowls.

“Should I burn my bow, then? Because you’ve got the loyalty of two dragons, when there are hundreds in the area?”

Annoyed at the sarcasm, Hinata steps forward. “What’re you so upset about, anyway? You never even liked having to... do things.”

Tsukishima’s mouth twists unpleasantly. “I’d explain, but I don’t want your head to explode from trying to understand it. And besides,” he adds, turning his back to them. “I’m not upset.”

“You seem upset,” Kageyama replies flatly.

“I’m not upset,” Tsukishima repeats, monotonous, striding back toward the village. Natsu is watching them now. She waves to him while he goes, and a flash of confusion passes over Tsukishima’s face just before he vanishes down the path (doesn't do well with cute, probably). Frowning, Natsu calls back to her brother.

“He’s weird!” 

Hinata laughs and Kageyama cracks a tiny smile. A breeze creeps through the yard, and Hinata lifts his arms to let it curl around him; Kageyama lowers himself back to the ground, slumping against the trunk of the tree.

“He makes a decent point, you know,” he murmurs after a moment. Hinata had let his eyes fall closed, but he opens them now to glance back over his shoulder.

“Tsukishima?”

“Yes. Kinboshi and Haizora are only two dragons.” Lighting on Haizora, he offers his companion a hand and the black dragon slinks toward him, burrowing his nose into Kageyama’s palm. “Karasuno has been attacked by wild dragons for years. We have no way of knowing how an encounter with a different dragon would go, and we’re leaving soon, so we might not even be here when the next one arrives.”

“Oh.” Hinata’s heart rate picks up—he hadn’t even thought of that, and blindly hoping _someone_ on Karasuno would rise to the occasion and befriend a wild dragon. With him, Kageyama, Haizora and Kinboshi all absent… even Hinata, the perpetual optimist, admits it’s a risk. “Can’t we… there must be something we can do.” _Please don’t make me stay here while you go to the mainland._ That would just be _unfair_ —even if Karasuno does need him—but he’s already taken five spikes to the side for Karasuno, shouldn’t he get to do this one thing?

“I’m not sure,” Kageyama sighs, dragging his knees to his chest. Haizora curls up on the ground beside him. “I’ve been thinking about it. So has Ukai-san, I think, judging from the fact that he’s been watching us from the farmhouse everyday we’ve been out here.”

Hinata whips around to stare at the farmhouse so quickly his neck hurts, and indeed a shadow moves across one of the windows. Ukai-san—keeping an eye on them? He used to doubt Ukai even knew his name, and things have changed with Kinboshi, sure, but it’s still strange to imagine Karasuno’s most prominent resident paying any sort of attention to him. And without him picking up on it, too!

Kageyama smirks into his lap. “You need to work on your observational skills.”

“Stop telling me what skills I need to work on!”

“But then you’ll never improve,” says Kageyama, puzzlement in his voice.

Hinata whines and turns on his heel, intending to abandon the conversation, but he’s stopped in his tracks by the sight of Ukai emerging from the back entrance of the farmhouse, his armsacross his chest. He must’ve noticed them noticing him, great. Kageyama makes a disgruntled noise, but he doesn’t get up as Ukai approaches, avoiding Natsu and Kinboshi’s game of fetch. The little girl pauses with the stick in her hand, mouth open, watching him go by.

“Ukai-san!” Hinata calls, and remembering his half-nudity he swings around to retrieve his haori—and finds Kageyama thrusting it helpfully into his face. _Thank you._ **Please put your clothes on now.** He’s too distracted by Ukai to feel disconcerted that this is the first time he’s heard Kageyama’s voice in his head for days.

“‘Afternoon,” Ukai mutters, joining them in the shade. He keeps an eye on Haizora at Kageyama’s side rather than looking at either of them.

“How are you, Ukai-san?” Hinata chirps, tugging on his haori.

“Can we help you?” Kageyama asks flatly, and Hinata winces. _That’s not very polite_. **I don’t care.** _You are so vulgar, for a prince._ **Shut up, you—**

“You can, actually,” Ukai replies; if anything Kageyama’s forwardness seems to relax him a little, like he didn’t entirely know how he was going to broach the topic without it. He casts a wary eye to Natsu. “Tonight, after sundown, come to the farmhouse. I’ll treat you to sake and we’ll talk.”

“Sake,” Hinata echoes, his eyes going wide. _Saaaakkkkeeeee._ (He has never had sake.)

“All right,” Kageyama answers for the both of them.

Ukai nods shortly, gives Haizora another cautious once-over, and starts shuffling back toward the house. _Ukai-san seems kind of awkward,_ he thinks, suppressing a giggle. **Now who’s not polite, huh?**

Hinata is about to turn around and give Kageyama an extremely verbal reply to this non-verbal taunt, and then he hears a distant shriek—growing louder, and the sound of sandals slapping the dirt of the path. They all freeze to watch Yamaguchi-san (the younger) come barreling into the yard, his hair sticking up beyond its usual disarray. He is yelling something, it sounds like words, maybe a _they_ and something starting with an ‘h’ sound. Kinboshi sinks to the ground, staring at him, and Ukai takes a few steps toward Yamaguchi when he pauses, hands on his knees, sucking in deep breaths.

“What’s going on, Yamaguchi-kun? Is something...” 

“They—are—” He tries to stand up straight but immediately sinks back to gripping his knees. “Michimiya-san, and, and Tanaka-san—Saeko-san, not, not—” Hinata perks up at the sound of those names, they all do, who wouldn’t?

“What about them?” Ukai asks, trying to offer their would-be messenger a hand, but he doesn’t take it, instead collapsing into the dirt on his ass.

“The… the harbor—they’re here! They’re back from the mainland!”

* * *

If the screaming crowd that greets the homecomers on the shore of Karasuno’s inlet bay is any indication, Michimiya Yui and Tanaka Saeko have been sorely missed.

Daichi has certainly felt it. He knows Kiyoko has felt it—they don’t talk at length about these things, but the way she purses her lips at the mention of Yui’s name is indication enough. When he was younger, before Tanaka Saeko left Karasuno and took the closest thing he’d ever had to a sister with her, Yui had been exactly the rock of optimism necessary during… a time like this. Her and Saeko’s visits home are infrequent, but this one couldn’t be better timed. 

When they sail into the harbor on their smallish rig, they bring goods for Kiyoko’s store, supplies for the island’s craftsmen, food to share, gifts for the farm, news and letters from the mainland, and—most importantly—themselves, safe and smiling. Saeko tackles her brother. Yui wraps her arms around Kiyoko, and smiles at Daichi over her shoulder. He tries not to let the fact that Suga is standing a few feet away put a damper on his greeting.

That night, there is (of course) a party.

“You’re saying _Hinata_ did all that? The little guy with the orange hair?” Saeko grins at Daichi over her cup; it’s a massive, toothy expression, wolfish like her brother’s—a brother currently passed out in a heap by the well in the village square, where the gathering has wound down after several hours. It’s taken Daichi that much time to explain the events of the past few months, while he and Saeko shared a drink in front of the fire, their friends occasionally popping in to listen. Nishinoya was particularly intent on describing the battle with the Arashi, despite not having clearly witnessed it. Daichi has seen almost everyone at some point tonight, though less of certain people—namely, Yui—than he wanted to. 

“He did.”

“Last time I saw him, he would spend all day doing target practice on wood scraps with an old crossbow.”

“Well, he did it. And he almost died.”

Saeko whistles. “I’ve never heard of anything like that—a dragon that size, or anybody having the guts to kill it. Or bonding with a Nichitatsu, shit.”

“That dragon saved his life,” says Daichi quietly, swirling the last couple sips of sake in his cup. He doesn’t know how to explain it to Saeko, a professional dragon killer, but the healing spectacle that happened a couple of weeks ago—in this very square—he’s not going to forget that as long as he lives. “Hinata wants to change all our minds about dragons. End our war with them.” Saeko’s eyes widen.

“End the war! Here, you mean?”

“Yeah. I think he’s making progress. He wants to change the whole country, apparently.” He’s never heard someone so young talk about the future and the world with such confidence.

Saeko raises her drink to her lips, her eyes going vacant, seeing something beyond what’s in front of her. “So he’s against killing dragons or something?”

“I think the plan is to ally with them.”

She raises an eyebrow, sighs. “I don’t see the mainland being friendly to an idea like that.” Daichi shrugs; he knows she’s right, and that somewhere beneath all the naivety, Hinata is right too. This is frustrating. “And it’s… I mean, it’s hard to believe, Sawamura. In my line of work.”

“I know,” he murmurs. He’d seen Hinata give Saeko the strangest look on the beach earlier, half-pained, half-excited. Part of the reason Daichi has stuck around Saeko all night is his fear of a surprise attack from Hinata, but after craning to stare at her across the square for a bit, he—and Kageyama—have disappeared. Daichi is finally getting used to that, the two of them always being _together._ “Ukai is sending him and Kageyama to the mainland in a few weeks.” That brings him Saeko’s full attention again. “The Arashi cut into our winter reserves. We need food, so Kageyama will be heading to Kyoto.” Saeko nods: whether or not she knows the full story, she’s put two and two together about Kageyama. “And I think Hinata will probably…” Will probably do something. Hopefully nothing too stupid. He isn’t sure if he really trusts Kageyama’s judgment any better.

“Sending them to the mainland,” Saeko echoes, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I need to talk to Ukai.”

He goes stiff—that doesn’t sound good. “What, why?”

Saeko lowers her hand and sighs again, gaze drifting to the fire. “Things on the mainland are… well, it’s not like they tell people anything, but the samurai have been moving around a lot, and they say the shogun’s health is bad.” She drains the rest of her sake and meets his eye. “The rumor is that there might be an invasion soon.”

Well. Shit. “Mongols?”

“Who else?” replies Saeko heavily. It’d only been ten years since their country’s last encounter with the Mongols, and while the fighting never reached Karasuno, he remembers well being a young teenager and watching their fathers leave for war. Between dragons and Mongols, parents became few and far between.

“Well, shit,” he says, out loud this time.

“I doubt it changes much for those kids, but if they’re heading to Kyoto, the atmosphere will be strange.”

“And the shogun’s heir, the one they think the emperor will appoint next—”

“Ah.” Saeko cracks a grin for the first time in several minutes. “He’s the current one’s son. I’ve heard he’s a character.” 

_Kageyama is a character too, and a character with a dragon_ , Daichi notes. Not that he, a farm boy, has any real nuanced understanding of that political situation aside from what Ukai (and once upon a time, Suga) have explained, but it seems like the only thing keeping Kageyama from being considered as a future shogun is his being on Karasuno. And soon he won’t be on Karasuno anymore. 

All that _help us and I’ll stay where I am_ business—it’s a cop-out, isn’t it? The smallest possible thing to do with that sort of power. He’s not sure if it’s the unwavering guilt from the Arashi or Suga’s determined hatred of him or just some ambition rearing its head, but he wants more than that for Kageyama, and for Karasuno. In this case the practical route is the cowardly one. Once he was so guarded about this secret, because Suga had stressed its importance—but now he thinks he really understands that importance, and he wants to tell everyone he knows.

Whoever the shogun’s current heir is, his claim can’t be much better than Kageyama’s, and with the addition of Haizora… Daichi tilts his head up, drinking in the dusting of stars over their heads. Saeko exhales beside him and he can feel her tiredness, under a layer of steel and moxy. 

“You two are looking terribly glum,” comes a warm voice—Michimiya. He smiles as he turns to greet his old friend, sinking into a seat beside him.

“Good, entertain him, cheer the man up,” Saeko announces as she gets to her feet with a wince. “I’m going to bed. And it looks like I’m carrying Ryuu home, damn it.” They laugh and wave her off for the night; Michimiya puts her head on his shoulder and sighs. She must be as exhausted as Saeko, if not more—her job has always been assisting the elder Tanaka’s various exploits, which sounds like it involves a lot of hauling crates and agreeing to pantomime getting beat up while wearing a villain’s costume. But she’s been everywhere because of it, and Daichi envies her a little.

“What’ve you been up to?” he asks lightly, and she lifts her head from his shoulder only to put her chin on her fist, pouting.

“You’re not going to like it.”

“I certainly don’t like that answer.”

Michimiya purses her lips, and he gets the sudden sense that she’s not kidding. “I was tracking down Sugawara.” He can’t help his instant reaction, and it’s more revealing than he’d like: he shuts his eyes and slumps forward over his knees. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry to bring it up—only, I didn’t know why he was avoiding—and I mentioned your name and he just froze up—”

“Did he,” says Daichi, not really a question.

“You don’t want to talk about it?”

“There’s nothing to say.”

“Suga wouldn’t even tell me a little bit of what happened, so there’s still something to say, _please._ ” He glances up and Michimiya’s round face implores him, her mouth in a tight line, her eyes pleading. It seems unfair that this thing with Suga should spoil his reunion with his friend.

Daichi pinches the bridge of his nose, imitating Saeko (Yui giggles half-heartedly), and he tries to blink away the sake’s effects. To compose himself. “You heard about everything that happened, with me taking people to fight the Arashi?” Yui nods slowly. The light of the dying fire shades the worry lines in her expression. “And Hinata getting injured.” Yui nods again. “Suga… caught me before we were about to leave.” He wishes that it were hard to recall their fight, that he had forgotten some of the details, that it didn’t sit at the front of his mind and refuse to budge. “He warned me against what we were doing. He said he would never forgive me, and I ignored him.” Yui lowers her head with a grimace, as though he’d nailed the story to her chest. “And then when I came back and Hinata was dying, he stopped speaking to me. And that’s it, that’s all there is to tell.”

For the duration of this explanation he’s been examining his palm, and the crack on the lip of his wooden cup, just seeing Michimiya out the corner of his eye. But she falls quiet for so long after he’s finished speaking he has to look up, to see her sitting there with her eyes closed, drawing in deep breath after breath.

“Yui—”

But she cuts him off, her voice firmer than he expects, almost _harsh_ : “That’s certainly very bad, and it seems like you ought to apologize.”

His anger—with himself, and with Suga for refusing to see him, and with this situation in general—has stagnated over the past few weeks, pooling at the pit of his stomach rather than coursing hotly through him, but at Michimiya’s prodding he can feel it surging again, bringing color to his face that might just barely be visible in the firelight. “If Suga-san wanted an apology, he might deign to speak to me, but since he refuses that I think he’d rather just be left alone.”

“Have you gone to him?” Michimiya asks, opening her eyes. “Approached him with that intention, made it clear…”

“I guess not, but—”

“How can you know until you do!”

“Things have been fine without us working closely,” he rationalizes, over Ukai’s voice in the back of his head, stressing that their partnership is good for Karasuno. “This is how it should be. Suga-san and I’s friendship was always unlikely.” 

“Unlikely,” Michimiya echoes. “Why, because he can read and write?”

“You make it sound as if that’s nothing.”

“You were always too nervous about class! None of that matters, Suga certainly doesn’t think so—”

“How do you know what Suga thinks?”

“Because unlike you, I was never afraid to be his friend.” Daichi winces and shifts away from her. He is suddenly thinking of his teenage years, of never quite feeling comfortable when Suga and Yui asked him along on their walks. Of feeling strangely relieved when Suga left to the mainland for a few years, because he didn’t have to grapple with a confusing presence. “Suga has always been different,” Yui offers, her voice losing some of its edge. “But not different in the way that you think.”

“So how is he different, then?” he laughs, dryly, without any real humor. 

Michimiya lifts her chin and stares him down, brow furrowing. “It’s hard to explain. I think… you’ll figure it out eventually.”

“You’re really clearing so much up.” This time the laugh that forces its way out of him might be a smidge genuine, and Michimiya smiles. He doesn’t notice how tense they’d gotten until it’s melting away and he feels comfortable again.

“You know, if you go and talk to Suga, it might—”

“All right! I’ll give it a shot.” Michimiya rocks back in her seat and hums, and Daichi can’t help mirroring her contentedness.

“Good!”

“If there’s blood drawn, you’re going to have to patch me up, because I doubt he’ll do it.”

“Gladly. I’m always patching up Saeko.”

“That’s believable.”

Michimiya chuckles, and getting to her feet tugs his arm. “Here, walk me back to the Tanaka’s.” At some point the party around them had died, and he’s startled to glance about and find they’re the only ones left; they stamp out the last of the fire together. On his way back to the farm after dropping Michimiya off, he goes by the apothecary just to look, maybe contemplate his doom a bit, expecting that Suga is asleep and he’ll have another few days to gather his thoughts.

But he turns the corner and there’s a soft, dim light on in one of the windows. It’s late, it must be nearly midnight, and from the way Michimiya spoke it sounded as if Suga had retired early. The trace amount of alcohol in his system is what informs him, with the utmost certainty, that Suga had gone to bed and forgotten to put out the lamp. That’s sweet, he thinks, smiling to himself; and he tiptoes toward the shop front, and gently slides open the door. 

* * *

“I’m sorry to draw you away from the festivities,” says Ukai-san as he pours out three small cups of sake, and pushes two across the table to his guests. 

Kageyama watches Hinata take his, rush it to his lips and sniff excitedly. “We don’t mind.” He’s never been one for festivals and all that, he never saw the point. _Be careful of that drink,_ he thinks, loudly enough for Hinata to hear. **You’re so bossy.** Hinata takes an ambitious swig, which predictably ends in spluttering and coughing. _Told you so_. _Reckless dumbass._ **Shut up!**

Ukai looks as if he might be suppressing a laugh. “Drink slow.”

Hinata has to wheeze for another moment, so Kageyama elects to take charge of the conversation and turns to Ukai, knocking back his own drink like it’s water. “What did you want to talk to us about?”

“Ah. I’ve been thinking about Hinata’s ambition to change attitudes toward dragons on the mainland.” Hinata’s hacking dies away and his mouth falls open—even Kageyama is surprised by this statement. Ukai has always seemed neutral about their plans, aside from wanting Kageyama to do his part, and neutral about the two of them in general. “I’ve spoken to Takeda-san about it,” he continues, sitting forward with steepled fingers. “And we agree there’s some information you all ought to have if you intend on seriously pursuing this.”

“I do,” says Hinata, rasping.

Ukai scans him, and sighs. “All right. Well.” Glancing between Ukai and Hinata, Kageyama slides his hitherto untouched cup of sake closer and lifts it from the table. “Karasuno’s archipelago is known for dragon activity. Settling here was always dangerous, but my ancestors didn’t really care. You may have deduced that already, however.” Kageyama nods and Hinata shakes his head vigorously. “What I’m certain you don’t know is that you’re not the first people in this world to befriend dragons.”

“What?” is Kageyama’s immediate, rough response; Hinata makes an excited sound somewhere between a gasp and a shout, very stupid; when he speaks it’s as much spit as words.

“You’re serious! Ukai-san!”

“It makes sense if you think about it,” Ukai says, with a little laugh. “Hundreds of years of this. Someone _would_ discover the same potential that you have, every so often.”

“Who was he?” Kageyama demands, his head swimming with Hinata’s psychic agitation as well as his own, and he has to kick away the swell of soutai awareness. _If whoever this other dragon person was couldn’t change things, then what makes us special?_ He’s glad he’s got the hang of shielding his thoughts from Hinata, now would not be the moment to have him eavesdropping.

“ _They_ _are_ ,” Ukai corrects quietly, taking another drink. “As far as I know, their order still exists. When I was a kid they visited Karasuno and told my grandfather to vacate or make peace with the dragons. Which went over about as well as you’d imagine.” Ukai grins; Kageyama doesn’t; Hinata is gaping at Ukai and occasionally squeaking, rendered speechless but not silent.

“Their order? So they have some kind of… pro-dragon organization?” Maybe this development isn’t such a bad sign after all.

“They run an isolated kind of monastery and shrine on the mainland. It’s considerably north of Kyoto, closer to Edo, but it wouldn’t take long at all if you flew.”

Hinata grabs Kageyama’s arm, finally regaining his voice. “We should go!”

“Obviously we’re going to go, stupid,” Kageyama says through his teeth.

“That was my idea as well,” Ukai offers with a smile. “I have no clue what they’ll say, but their agenda doesn’t sound too different from yours. And if the deal falls through with Kageyama’s family, you might as well ask them if they want to help out our reserves.” He digs into the front of his yukata and retrieves his pipe. “Now that we’re dragon-friendly.”

“I wonder if they ride them,” Hinata murmurs, leaning into Kageyama’s side excitedly; with the hyperactivity of their soutai connection this gives him a strong feeling, and subsequently a strong rush of embarrassment. He has been feeling a lot of embarrassment around Hinata lately—it’s very different to have a waking soutai than one half-dead in a semi-comatose state. He keeps his psychic screen raised at every opportunity, but that does nothing for the physical draw: you start out taking pleasure in touching someone and being around them, and… and then you get hit with the sensation of overexposure. It’s frustrating to know he can’t help but want Hinata near him, so he shoves down the urge. Tries to keep the desire from overflowing. Elbows Hinata in the ribs.  

“Don’t sit so near me, stay over there.”

Hinata winces and recoils, shielding his ribcage. **What is your problem!** That thought is harsh enough he hears it over his screen. Kageyama scowls at his sake, and tries a taste. It’s nasty and it burns.

“I don’t know specifically where they’re located,” Ukai announces, having missed their squabble in order to pack his pipe. “So when you get up north, you’ll have to do some scouting and find the shrine yourselves.” Clearing his throat, he lights the pipe and takes a drag, then puffs out a white cloud over their heads. “Ask for Nekoma.”

“Nekoma,” Hinata echoes, wide-eyed.

“Yeah. I think you’re all right to tell them you’re from Karasuno.” Ukai raises an eyebrow. “They don’t hate us too much.”

“And what do you plan to do if a dragon attack happens while Hinata and I are on the mainland?”

Kageyama recognizes that this is a non-sequitur, but it seems as good a time as any to bring it up—or maybe not, judging by the look Hinata is giving him, and the way Ukai-san’s head tilts to the side.

“Because you two are the only ones who know how to subdue an attack, you mean?”

“Yes. We’ve established violence is the stupidest response.”

“Don’t attack them,” Hinata says, and Kageyama turns at the cadence of his voice, slipping into that warm rallying hopefulness he adopts when speaking about dragons. “You’ll just frighten them. They want to live and be safe, attacking isn’t… it really isn’t a good idea.”

Ukai assesses the two of them for a moment, then shrugs. “You could be right. I won’t be in charge of it. It’s up to you two to make sure we’re covered for a wild dragon, since you’re the experts.” _Experts_ , Kageyama scoffs inwardly. All this talk of subduing a wild dragon and he’s got no idea how he’d react to one that isn’t Haizora or Kinboshi.

“I suppose that makes sense,” Kageyama replies, glancing sideways at Hinata, who rubs his eyes. “We’ll try to leave you all prepared.”

They don’t sit there much longer without Kageyama being forced to down his sake, an experience he immensely begrudges with Ukai and Hinata looking on and laughing; then he and Hinata head out into the night, Hinata probably a little worse for alcohol in his veins, Kageyama feeling woozy himself. They trudge through the rice fields where the water catches the starlight and makes the earth look like a second sky, stretching out on either side of the narrow path.

Kageyama is mustering the sobriety to ask if Hinata has any ideas about dragon friendship training procedures, when his companion pipes up himself: “You’ve been so weird lately!” He says it blithely, a smile on his face, not even looking in Kageyama’s direction.

“What?”

“You told me not to sit near you! I thought we were okay.” Kageyama is suddenly aware of the fact that they’re walking maybe half a foot apart, and he feels himself shift away without thinking. Now Hinata does glance at him, and his eyes are round and his expression is simple, kind of sweet. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong,” he replies reflexively, squaring his shoulders. “Have you considered maybe I don’t want to sit near you?”

“No, because we’re soutai and you’re supposed to want—”

“Only on some level,” Kageyama snaps, and Hinata grimaces. “I can have a perfectly rational desire not to be around you. I don’t have to listen to the soutai, or you, or anybody.” They are almost to the village, thankfully, which means he can make an escape.

Hinata slumps and shoves his hands into his armpits. “Whatever, then.” _Screen. Screen._ He focuses, but his screen isn’t strong enough to block out the stinging indignation coming off Hinata. The fucking sake, probably. 

“Maybe concentrate on how we need to teach people to be prepared for a dragon, instead of annoying me.”

“I’m not trying to— _urgh_.” Hinata trips in the path and hisses, and it’s a moment before Kageyama decides to stop marching forward and wait for him. But then he retreats toward Hinata’s stooping figure, fists balled at his sides. Hinata gets back to his feet, glaring up at him. A frown twists his wide mouth. “Did you forget that we’re going to be like this forever? You’re not even trying to have a good relationship with me.” Those words bounce off Kageyama, too many logical leaps for him to make.

“I like our current relationship.”

“That’s not what I’m saying!”

“Then I don’t understand what you’re saying,” he says, and turns to head home again. Hinata is at his elbow right away.

“I’m saying—I’m saying that I used to think we’d be partners if we couldn’t be friends, but—now we’re something else entirely.” Kageyama’s steps slow. Not partners, not friends, but… Hinata walks a little ahead of him, his stubborn chin tilted up. “Something that no one has ever been before. I don’t know what that is, but—” And he turns back to Kageyama. “I was hoping that’d be something we could figure out together.”

Kageyama stares at him for a while. He isn’t sure what to call this feeling he’s having—it’s not quite as pointed as fear, but it’s in the same family. Apprehension mixed with spiritual nearness, a nearness that (for all his talk) he couldn’t fight if he tried. _Something no one has ever been before._ That is unsettling, this feeling is unsettling. Everything should have a name. These liminal items cow his need for the tangible.

Finally he exhausts all options but to run away from this, because now is not the time, tonight is not the night. They are just a few feet from where the path opens up on the village and so he turns his back on Hinata—who protests at length, psychically and otherwise—and stomps off in the direction of home, though tearing himself away from his soutai in distress makes him feel as though the air he trudges through has taken on the consistency of thick mud. _Another time_ , he tells himself, of solving this problem, ignoring the sound of Hinata calling his name. After all, it’s his soutai who said so: they are going to be this way forever. 

On his way home he stomps by the apothecary and he notices a light on in the window, and thinks that’s odd, it’s so late, the town seems deserted. But it goes out as quickly as he noticed it, and he thinks maybe he is just imagining things.

* * *

Suga has been lying in bed for an hour and a half by the time the sounds from the village square quiet enough that he thinks, _all right, finally, now I can sleep._

Except that he still can’t sleep. He sleeps worse now than he did when Hinata was injured—he’s no longer exhausted from long days of care and worrying, now it’s just him and his anxiety keeping him awake.

He lies there for another while, and then sits up. The back room of the apothecary, with his little bed and the hearth and the rest of his living arrangements, gapes back at him, dark and mute. He screws his eyes shut and opens them again: nothing has changed. The room stays empty, he’s still alone. From overtiredness or for another reason, his eyes are wet.

It’s too _hot_ on this summer night so he doesn’t pull on his yukata to pad into the front of the shop, light the lamp and poke around for the tea Yui had brought him earlier. Mainland tea, a real delicacy. She gifts him a little each time she returns, and has since they were teenagers. Looking at the bag he’s reminded of the expression on her face earlier today, when she’d mentioned Daichi and Suga had reacted so… so _stupidly,_ giving everything away with his panic attack but not being able to tell her about any of it.

Now that Hinata has healed, the fissure between them is just broken trust and, on Suga’s part, fear of the unknown. It’s a wedge created by the drama of the Arashi but driven in, ultimately, by his own insecurity. Daichi is… dangerous, for him. And it should be funny, given that he’s always thought of Daichi as the sort who wouldn’t hurt a fly, but on this occasion he can’t find the humor in anything.

He takes the tea into the back room and puts water on the fire, then sinks back into bed while he waits for it to boil. Making tea in the middle of the night in his underwear—perhaps he can see humor in that, even if he isn’t laughing. The light from the lamp in the front room streams through the open doorway, a beam of orange-yellow skirting his vision.

Then it goes out.

It takes a second or two before Suga registers the darkness, and falls stock still. That can’t have been the wind, and the flame shouldn’t have died so quickly—and he rises from the bed at the sound of a footstep creaking the floorboard.

“Who’s there?”

Another creak. “Sugawara-san?”

At the sound of that voice he feels himself shrink; he creeps to the doorway and peeks into the front room, now just barely visible by the moonlight coming in through the windows, silhouetting the figure of Sawamura Daichi. Right there. In his _home_.

“I’m sorry to frighten you, I thought you had left the light on…” Suga can’t properly see his face, but his voice is as gentle as he’s heard it in weeks.

“I wasn’t asleep,” Suga says, though he could’ve sworn he was speechless—somehow, despite the numbness of his tongue and the tremor in his hands, he’s talking. 

“Oh,” comes Daichi’s tiny reply. “I’ll light it again.” And his blurry dark figure shifts back toward the lamp.

The room repopulates with orangeish glow, and he can see Daichi take one look at him and flush red. For a moment he’s puzzled, and then he remembers that he’s in his underwear and nothing more, and now he is red too, probably all down his neck and shoulders where Daichi can _see_ it, at least until he turns his back out of embarrassment.

“I’m sorry,” Suga squeaks, retreating into the back room in search of his clothes. “I’ll just—”

“Suga-san, it’s your home, it’s fine!”

_Is_ it fine? He’s already found his yukata and pulls it on hastily before he creeps back to the doorway, the garment untied and hanging open while he peeks out at this surprise, but not entirely unwelcome, visitor. Even with the lamp, Daichi hangs his head and keeps himself half-turned away, making his expression unreadable and Suga’s anxiety enormous. He scrambles to recover all the resentment and guilt and anger he’s harbored toward this man for the past month, but his heart still races from the scare, and he feels his hardened heart soften to look at Daichi blushing and ducking his head in the lamp’s glow.

And that’s the problem. Daichi is _dangerous_.

Hating him is just, easier. It’s the safe call. A call that’s painful to make, for whatever reason— even though it’s the one he always does, always. 

Daichi finally lifts his head, his jaw fine and square, his skin especially dark from days under the summer sun. “Are you all right?” he asks, voice scratchy in his throat.

Suga’s mouth just sort of flaps. “Huh?” He pulls himself into the front room, using the wall for support.

“You aren’t sleeping. You’re not ill or anything?”

“No. I’m fine, I just… can’t.”

Daichi nods, slowly then again with more certainty, and he takes a step toward the door that makes Suga’s stomach do a funny thing, not unlike sinking. Daichi is leaving, slipping away—a little, nice, strange moment between them is slipping away and Suga hates that in spite of himself.

But Daichi freezes mid-step, and wheels around to stride toward Suga, facing him in full for the first time tonight. And his eyes are shining and he speaks with the clarity of a soldier reciting orders when he says, “Allow me to give you my deepest apologies for everything that’s happened.” He bows, addressing the floor. “I recognize my behavior led to Hinata-kun’s injury and caused distress for yourself and this entire community and I have never, never—” Daichi’s voice cracks. “I’ve never been so sorry about anything in my life.”

He straightens up and meets Suga’s eye. Maybe expectant, more than that _resigned_ , as he waits for an answer. From Suga. Suga, who pulls his loose yukata around himself protectively, and has to speak around the massive catch in his throat. 

“Okay.”

It comes out weak, pathetic. Daichi squints at him.

“Okay?”

“I forgive you,” Suga mumbles, and— “No.” He shuts his eyes. “No, that’s wrong.”

“You don’t forgive me,” Daichi says unsteadily. His yukata has shifted so that one of his collarbones is visible, and the planes of his chest look smooth and soft, where they peek out just enough to make imagining what’s hidden by clothes far too easy. 

“No, it’s not all your fault, you can’t—you didn’t summon that dragon here, and you didn’t make Hinata do what he did. So, you can’t take all the blame, you know!” He opens his eyes again and tries to smile, but the rising hysteria in his voice betrays any feigned comfort. “Besides, I couldn’t stop you, it’s at least a little bit my fault—”

“It isn’t your fault in the slightest,” Daichi snaps, stepping toward Suga again, now with the furrow in his brow and anger in his tone to make a person go weak in the knees. Suga’s stomach has turned to stone, certainly, that’s the only explanation for this potent cocktail of fear and self-loathing and… swooning.

“Sawamura, please.” He pleads without knowing what he’s pleading for. Perhaps a little mercy.

“I won’t let you blame yourself!”

Somewhere between how close Daichi has gotten and how much passion pours off him right now, and accompanying his insistence on Suga’s innocence, Suga finds a little fight buried down in himself. “I won’t let you either,” he shoots back, managing to push off the wall and stand up straight. Daichi breathes hard and his chest rattles; the rock in Suga’s stomach is liquefying, a liquid fire in his belly sparking to life. He can feel their argument has a pulse, he can feel it kicking.

“But it’s much more my responsibility than yours.”

“That doesn’t account for how much of this was chance, and chance was certainly involved—”

“Involved but not responsible!”

“But it’s _done_ ,” says Suga shrilly, making Daichi’s mouth fall open. “There’s no use in dwelling on this, is there? Not when you’re doing everything you can to make sure it never happens again, and you _are_ , I know you are, so—so!” His eyes comb the floor, restlessly, putting things together. “We should concentrate on moving on, and making it up to Hinata by helping him, and… we can’t do that if we let ourselves be obsessed with our mistakes.” Suga looks up, heart in his throat; Daichi is still gaping. He takes a moment to collect his response, his mouth moving wordlessly, and in the meantime Suga listens to his own words echoing in his ears. He was always better at giving advice than taking it.

“You’re right,” says Daichi, finally, and he bows again. The stupid formality, when they’re having a conversation like this, the fire in his belly (and it’s thrilling to have a fire in one’s belly, for once) crackles angrily—Suga steps toward him, thwacking him on the shoulder.

“Stop with that!”

“Sorry,” Daichi splutters, straightening up, the crease in his brow easing to sheepishness.

“And stop with the apologizing, too!” Daichi keeps his head down but Suga catches the flash of a smile on his face.

“If I stop bowing, will you stop ignoring me?”

Daichi means this as a joke, certainly, a lighthearted prod at their friendship—but Suga stumbles back, the mirth sliding off his face. He had forgotten how little his behavior has to do with any feelings of anger toward Daichi. No, anger isn’t the bad thing, anger isn’t what’s wrong. 

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, to a gaping Daichi. “But I think we should stay away from each other.” An apology means nothing. An apology only makes things worse. Perhaps if he could find it in himself to hate Daichi a little better, they could be friends.

“Stay away… I don’t understand,” says Daichi, coming toward him, making up the distance put between them by Suga’s step back. He stretches out his hand, and Suga can recall its calloused warmth from every meaningless brush. 

“I just think it would be wise.”

“I disagree! I think we make a good team.”

Suga keeps shying away, shrinking,, but eventually his back meets the wall. “You don’t understand.”

“No, I _don’t_ ,” Daichi says, his voice rising with frustration. “What’s going on? Why are you doing this?” Suga feels his eyes welling, which is a foolish thing to have happen, and the thought of crying in front of Daichi again only makes him more miserable.

“Because we’re different and I’m afraid,” he murmurs, blinking away a few tears. 

“Different, Yui said that too—what does that even mean?” Suga catches a glimpse of Daichi’s mouth and it hurts, seeing that, the welcoming curve of his lower lip. “What makes you so different from me?” he says, indignant, as though he doesn’t believe it possible. 

“Daichi…”

“I thought we were equals, to you!”

“Daichi…” he says again, hearing his own voice keen with longing.

Hurt, his face screwed up in distress, Daichi speaks a little softer now and with terrible hurt: “It doesn’t seem like you to hold some difference against me. That’s cruel, I never thought you were cruel.”

And with that the tiny fortress of resistance in Suga’s heart tumbles to the ground, after a long and hard-fought battle; here is his rubicon, the point at which he has given up on hiding the truth but lacks the words to tell it, and maybe he makes a decision to step forward somewhere in the recesses of his brain but it doesn’t feel like that—it feels as though this impulse to move in and press his lips to Daichi’s reaches out from the center of his chest and pulls them together.

He hasn’t kissed anyone in years, and so it is the barest of gestures, and the warm weight is nice for a moment until it moves away from him, taking with it his peace of mind, and dread fills the vacancy left by Daichi’s mouth departing his. 

And there is his face, staring back at Suga’s, his eyes widening and his pupils dark. Suga shifts to step back, to run away, perhaps out into the night never to return, but the gap between him and Daichi doesn’t widen because Daichi follows him, and Suga has the striking terror that he’ll be hurt for this, this _thing_ that he feels, and he winces to brace himself for the pain, squeezing tears from his eyes. 

But then something brushes his hip, and he places the touch: the callouses of Daichi’s fingertips, which he’d admired so hopelessly earlier. 

He opens his eyes but sees nothing aside from Daichi’s face swimming toward him, and then they flutter closed again at the dizziness, the way all his coherence and reasonable thoughts seem to dribble out his ears, because Daichi is kissing him. Firmly but carefully, not moving his lips much but winding his hand into Suga’s open yukata and around to stroke the small of his back. He doesn’t know how long they kiss, it’s like he’s lost his balance and tripped into this embrace, gently clinging to the lean muscle of Daichi’s upper arms and letting his mouth open under Daichi’s and feeling the warm air of an exhale milling around his lips and cheeks. 

It might be a long kiss or a short one—he only knows that it is quiet but strong, in a way that seems strange for a kiss but just right for Daichi.

So he has no idea how long it’s been, or where he is or what is happening when Daichi pulls away from him—abruptly, as though something has snapped in him—and shields his mouth with the back of his hand and keeps his head down so Suga can’t see his face. The crushing dread he’d felt when he first kissed Daichi and realized what he’d done returns twofold watching Daichi stumble toward the door, saying nothing, turning away.

“Please, Daichi,” he pleads, again, and he reaches out, but his hands close around nothing as Daichi recoils—Suga catches his expression, fear and horror, and he wants to cry all over again.

And so Daichi goes, a blur in the low light vanishing in the dark vacuum of the doorway, not even closing it behind him, and Suga stands by himself for a moment; he’s never felt the empty largeness of his home quite so keenly before.

* * *

Are people who run away always cowards?

Hinata spends the next day, after Kageyama marched away from him in the midst of their argument, wondering about this. Beyond the fact that he has never thought of Kageyama as cowardly, he doesn’t understand what there is to be afraid of—how could being _the greatest soutai of all time_ frighten someone? People ought to be frightened of _them_.

But running away is the cowardly move and Kageyama had done it. Hinata doesn’t understand, and the confusion rattles his increasingly frayed nerves. Between the things Ukai had said about those Nekoma people, and their responsibility to prepare Karasuno for dragons in their absence, and the way Saeko-san had just sort of… patted his head when he told her about his plan for the mainland, he is something more than just nervous: he’s worried. Concerned, in a big way, for the first time in his life.

“It’d be good to have my soutai right now, wouldn’t it, Kinchan?” The dragon pops open an eye and makes a noncommittal whine in reply. “I know,” Hinata mutters; he wipes away the kanji he’d been carving in the dirt and gives the first symbol for _soutai_ another go. He practiced a lot when he was immobile for a while after being healed, and his handwriting is slowly becoming recognizable Japanese—not that sitting on a log in the stableyard and attempting literacy seems like a good use of a fine, sunny day.The yard is so quiet this afternoon without Kageyama and Haizora around; he has the vague sense that they’re off in the mountains somewhere, which is bizarre, being able to feel Kageyama even when he’s on the opposite end of the island.

And yet he still perks up hopefully when he hears footsteps crunching down the path from the village. 

Instead there’s Yachi—also good, he gives her a big smile. “Good afternoon, Hitoka-chan!”

She is panting and clearly a bit sweaty, and clutching something in her hand, but she smiles back as she shuffles toward him, then hesitates when Kinboshi sighs in her sleep at his feet.

“You haven’t met Kinchan yet, have you?”

“No…”

“You should say hello, I’ll wake her up—”

“NO,” says Yachi quickly, and she gives Kinboshi a wide berth as she skitters over to join Hinata on the log. He brushes off a little frustration at her hesitancy—he and Yachi have been friends so long, it seems like she ought to trust him. And he remembers Kageyama again, _the people of Karasuno have been well-taught to fear these creatures_. “Hinata-kun, I have a favor to ask you.”

“Hm, yeah?” It’s so _hot_ , he moves to strip off his haori before he remembers he’s with a girl and deflates a little.

A crease in her brow, Yachi opens her mouth to continue, but spies the kanji in the dirt at his feet. “Are you writing! I didn’t know you could write.”

“Suga-san taught me four words,” he announces proudly. “So when I go to the mainland, I’ll write you a letter.”

“What would it say?”

“It would say… day little sister dragon soutai.” He pouts at Yachi’s subsequent giggle. So he’s not quite literate yet. He rubs away the kanji with his foot.

“Speaking of letters, Hinata-kun…” A glance up reveals that Yachi’s smile has turned nervous, and she clutches the thing—a bit of paper, he realizes—in both hands now. “Michimiya-san was saying that they wouldn’t be going to Kyoto for a while when they go back to the mainland, so I was wondering—if you’re not too busy, I mean, with finding food reserves—that’s important, I know—”

“What do you need?” he asks warmly, and Yachi’s shoulders relax an inch.

“I was wondering if you could bring a letter to my mother.”

Hinata’s head tilts to the side: Yachi’s mother? “I thought you were an orphan, Hitoka-chan.”

Yachi’s mouth pops open, taken aback by the plainness with which he’s said this, and his face feels a little hot. “I… not technically, no, um. My father is… but not my mother.”

“Oh.” He’s not good at awkward conversations and he knows Yachi falls into them easily, so he pulls the paper, folded and sealed with a bit of wax, from her hands and gives her a grin. “I’ll deliver your letter!”

She exhales what’s clearly a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Hinata-kun. The address is on the back, you can probably find someone to read it to you in Kyoto.” He nods and tucks it into his obi with a protective pat. Yachi starts to get up, but he reaches for her arm.

“Wait, wait! You have to meet Kinchan properly, now that you’re here.”

Yachi freezes, presumably out of terror, but it at least makes her maneuverable as he takes her hand and leads her toward Kinboshi, who is stirring from her nap.

“We’ve got to teach everyone how to interact peacefully with dragons before we can leave,” he explains excitedly. Kinboshi lifts her head for him to stroke the spot behind her ear, just how she likes it; the dragon whimpers happily and Yachi jumps, then squeezes her eyes shut. “You really don’t need to be afraid, Hitoka-chan,” Hinata says, his mouth sinking into a frown. “Kinboshi saved my life, you know.”

“I know,” she says weakly. “But she _likes_ you.”

“Kinchan likes everybody.” Yachi opens one eye to peek at Kinboshi, who now regards her skeptically, but with her usual friendliness. Watching them watch each other, Hinata’s stomach flips—it occurs to him that if there’s anyone on Karasuno who is _like_ him, who could see what he sees in the dragons, it’s probably Yachi Hitoka. “Please try, Hitoka-chan,” he says, a crack in his voice giving away his deeper sincerity. “I need your help on this one, I think.”

With round brown eyes Yachi blinks at him, once, twice, three times. Then she inhales, and edges one foot, another foot forward: toward Kinboshi, with a hand outstretched. Hinata grins at the sight of Kinboshi sticking her nose forward and into Yachi’s palm. He laughs when Kinboshi snorts and Yachi squeals, leaping away, but after a moment she creeps back toward the dragon.

“That’s good,” he chuckles, as she resumes stroking Kinboshi’s nose. “When she lets you touch her, that means you’re friends.” If Yachi (or anyone, for that matter, but his heart is set on Yachi taking his place) can get a wild dragon to let her touch it, there go their concerns about the possibility of another attack. He leans toward her excitedly. “If she hadn’t met a human, she might be scared to let to you touch her, so that means she’s just as scared of you as you are of her. If you’re calm and nice to her and you can prove that you’re not going to hurt her, she’ll trust you. She might even let you ride her.”

Yachi blinks again, running her fingers over Kinboshi’s scales, then nods. He gives her a smile.

“Are you okay? Do you think you can do it?”

“You said you needed my help.” He doesn’t quite understand the inflection in her voice, like this should be an explanation. She glances up from Kinboshi, and he has to look down slightly to meet her eye, which is an unusual feeling. “Do you really think this is going to make things safer?”

If he were anyone else he might tire of that question. “I do!”

Yachi nods again, firmer, resolute. “Then I want to help.”

He spends the rest of the afternoon with Yachi and Kinboshi, teaching her the basics of dragon management—which is a lot of him doing things instinctively and Yachi stopping him for an explanation, but it works, and she lets him talk a lot. He talks until she invites him and Natsu to have dinner at Kiyoko’s, and he talks all through the meal too. By the time they’re done and he and his sister head home, he thinks Yachi might actually be comfortable with the lessons, and the responsibility he’s leaving her. She had gotten this steely look in her eyes, a determination summoned up from an inner strength that Hinata assumes everyone must possess. It distracts him from the pull he feels at sundown, to the distant warmth of Kageyama’s spirit on the other side of town.

After he’s put Natsu to bed, he tries to sleep himself; it’s been a day of dragons, of thinking and teaching, and he’s accomplished a lot. For the first time in several days, he feels good about leaving Karasuno.

So mentally, he turns west, to the mainland. With Karasuno sorted, he can think about what it is he wants to do. About teaching other people the way he had Yachi.

_It’s possible_ , he thinks, kicking his legs aimlessly at the end of his bed. _It’s possible, it’s possible._ He runs through all the ways it could happen, just to remind himself how possible it is—how many opportunities he has, and how the immense power of his and Kageyama’s soutai makes him better poised than anyone has ever been to _do this_ , even if people have attempted it before and failed, as Ukai-san had suggested.

He falls so deep into thinking just how doable and realistic his goals are that he forgets to fall asleep instead. An hour ticks by, and then another. Outside their house the village goes dark and still; he keeps kicking his legs and rolling around on the mattress (it’s hard to get comfortable with his side still sensitive) and accidentally stirs Natsu; he drags his mattress into the front room to let her sleep in peace.

They have never had a door to cover the shabby entrance to their home, they’ve never needed one or been able to afford it, so when Kageyama arrives he doesn’t announce himself with a knock, just lets his voice drift into the house.

“Hello.”

Hinata sits up abruptly—he hadn’t felt Kageyama approach, so distracted was he by thoughts of the possible. “You’re here.” There’s frustration in his greeting. They haven’t spoken since Kageyama ran from him.

“Yeah,” Kageyama mutters, shuffling inside. He wears just his yukata and obi, which is less clothing than usual (but still more than Hinata, who sleeps in his underwear), and his shoulders are hunched.

“Why?” Hinata demands, in a harsh whisper, remembering Natsu.

“I could feel your insomnia all the way on the other end of the village. It’s keeping me awake.”

And, admittedly, some of Hinata’s internal ruffled feathers are soothed at Kageyama’s moody presence as he glares at their small selection of furniture and cookware, stored messily along the side of the room. Hinata remembers he has a partner in all this, and the whirling, clicking gears slow to a safer pace. _Even if that partner has been a bit of a jerk lately_ , he thinks loudly, and he sees Kageyama twitch, so he must have heard it.

“I’m sorry,” comes his voice after a beat, grudging.

“What are you sorry for?” Hinata replies coyly, leaning back.

“For being soutai with such a dumbass.”

“ _Hey._ ”

Kageyama says nothing, instead hesitating briefly and then padding over to sit on the end of Hinata’s bed; Hinata’s first instinct is to pull his legs to his chest, but he regrets that, because the closer Kageyama gets the more he wishes they were touching somehow. It’s been an entire day since they did, shared one of the shoulder brushes or arm nudges that soothe his compulsion to cling to Kageyama and never let go. It’s frustrating to deal with such plain desire running under all the big, complicated, adult issues between the two of them; he is mad and nervous and concerned and a lot of that is Kageyama’s fault, but ultimately, it feels good to be near him.

“I’m not used to needing anybody,” Kageyama murmurs, gazing vacantly at the floor.

“Everybody needs somebody, Kageyama-kun.” 

Kageyama shakes his head. “Not me. Not before this.” 

Hinata stares at him, the way he leans over his knees and hangs his head forward. He remembers young Kageyama, so standoffish and rude, stomping away from the one offer he and Yachi had ever made to play with him. “It’s more cowardly to run away from somebody than to stay and admit you need them,” he decides, resting his chin on his knee.

Kageyama tosses him a sideways glare. “Depending on another person makes you weak. We’re always going to be weak now, because we’re like this.”

“You’re wrong,” Hinata shoots back, louder than he’d like, and he pauses a moment to listen for Natsu in the other room—nothing, he hasn’t woken her. He exhales in relief. “Suga told you how strong we are together.”

Straightening up, Kageyama twists to face him properly. It’s too dark to make out his expression, but Hinata doesn’t need to see him to feel the intensity of it. “And what if we have to stop being together?”

“That won’t happen,” Hinata easily declares. Blind confidence is a forte of his.

Kageyama opens his mouth to reply, struggles, then closes it again. Hinata has a good sense of his aura, and he can sort of feel how fast Kageyama’s heart beats, but the emotions are too complex for him to suss out and name. Swallowing hard, he inches down the bed, bringing them closer.

“Are you still afraid I might die?” Kageyama is shaking his head. “If I survived that, I can survive anything.”

“No, no. Not… like that.”

“Like what? What are you so afraid of?” Hinata murmurs, poking his face toward Kageyama’s; Kageyama shies a little at his nearness, but relaxes when their eyes meet—with the darkness this is the first time they have looked at each other properly since Kageyama arrived. His soutai has no answer to his question, not verbally, but he does catch a snippet of his first thought in reply, just one word: _losing._ Losing… losing their dragons? Losing _him_? Hinata feels himself smile reflexively. _We_ are _friends._

Perhaps because he overhears this, or perhaps because he shares in the affection that bursts in Hinata just then, Kageyama reaches out and wraps himself around Hinata’s torso in a tight hug. The cloth of his yukata is itchy on Hinata’s bare chest and arms, and he has to pull himself up a little to keep from getting suffocated by shoulder, but he hugs back just as tightly and all in all this embrace is the best he’s felt in weeks. He blushes, actually, because it’s so nice—like the time Kageyama helped with his bath but tenfold, more than just his fingers and palms on Hinata’s skin—their chests are flush and Kageyama’s hip bumps his own, and a cheek is pressed against the back of Hinata’s neck.

“Don’t do anything stupid while we’re on the mainland,” Kageyama mumbles, sending a puff of warm air down Hinata’s spine.

“Don’t _you_ do anything stupid while we’re on the mainland!” Kageyama grunts noncommittally and keeps hugging him. “I won’t do anything stupid.” He hears his voice shrinking. “And I won’t go anywhere, either. I’m here.” Thinking of something, he laughs it out, half to himself: “On your side.”

Kageyama stiffens and shifts back to look at him, but he doesn’t move his arms from Hinata’s sides. “I don’t want to leave.” Alarmed, Hinata flinches, but Kageyama quickly clarifies, “Right now, I mean. To go home tonight.” Oh—oh. _I don’t want you to leave either,_ Hinata agrees, smiling now.

“Then stay here,” he offers. Kageyama squints at him.

“Is that really okay?”

“Asahi-san and Noya-san share a room and a bed, I think that’s normal for soutai.” Noya-san had lowered his voice to tell Hinata about this, probably because it might look strange to people who aren’t in-the-know. But Hinata understands perfectly. Or, he thinks he does. Yeah.

“Okay,” Kageyama consents, though it takes a good deal of manhandling for Hinata to get him to lie back on the bed like a normal person, and not to clam up when Hinata lies back beside him. Finally, finally, they get comfortable, and Hinata pauses to berate Kageyama for not knowing how to share a bed with someone, to which Kageyama has no reply beyond squeezing his head. Hinata yelps so loudly he’s once again afraid they’ve woken Natsu—but there’s no sound from the other room. They calm down, the late hour catching up with them, and Hinata falls asleep within the first thirty seconds of silence, his head lolling into the crook of Kageyama’s neck.

He wakes up to the sound of a giggle.

And then another giggle. He opens his eyes.

Natsu is standing at the foot of his bed, and she laughs again at the sight of him staring back at her groggily. He moves to roll over, but can’t, and so he discovers the source of Natsu’s amusement: he’s twisted himself around Kageyama during the night, and Kageyama has done the same to him; he struggles to untangle himself from beneath the dead weight of a snoring Kageyama’s limbs.

“It’s funny,” Natsu chirps, her hands clasped behind her back as she watches him try to slap Kageyama awake. “You sleep just like your dragons.”

* * *

It rains on the early morning they leave Karasuno; not very hard, but enough that their flight to the mainland will be uncomfortable.

It’s been another three weeks since the miraculous healing in the village square, weeks of rest and planning. Michimiya and Saeko had left two weeks before, telling Hinata and Kageyama where on the mainland they planned to be, in case they wanted to meet up. Hinata had put hours into helping Yachi with the dragons, and he leaves confident in her abilities, even if he gets a feeling that Kageyama isn’t quite as on board. The night before their departure, Natsu keeps him up begging to be taken along, and so he’s feeling exhausted and high-strung as they load up their saddle bags on the shore of Karasuno harbor, wiping rain out of their eyes.

Because of the weather, the crowd to see them off is smaller than it might have been otherwise. Kiyoko and Yachi are there, looking after Natsu, and Asahi and Nishinoya and Tanaka as well. Ukai-san and Takeda arrive briefly, give them their regards, and then head back to the farmhouse. The only notable absence is Suga-san—Sawamura must be puzzled by that too, with the way he keeps glancing at the path to the village. Strangely, he hasn’t seen much of either man—Sawamura and Suga—for the past three weeks. Hinata tries not to feel too hurt, he’s certain Suga would have a good reason for not coming, and he still might show up.

But he doesn’t. He and Kageyama finish loading in silence, and then they both turn back to the crowd.

He says his goodbye to Natsu, lifting her up and spinning her around, and promising when he gets back he’ll have done it all and made her very proud.

“I’m already proud of you,” she says with a hint of confusion, and he sets her down, not having an answer for that.

Natsu hugs Kageyama, too, her head coming up to the middle of his chest. He looks positively bewildered by the gesture, and Noya laughs boisterously. Hinata gets hugs from everyone else, and he knows he’s dawdling, and Kageyama knows he’s dawdling. **I want to be there before sundown,** growls his voice in Hinata’s head, while he hugs Yachi tight enough that she squeaks. **It’s not like you’re never going to see them again.**

As they fly out, he waves to the shrinking dots clustered on the sands of Karasuno. Kageyama doesn’t look back, but fixes his glare on the mainland, directly ahead.

Hinata has only ever flown long distances over the sea—flying over land, he finds, is an utterly different experience. **We have to stay high up, so that no one looking up will notice the dragons have riders, or try to attack us.** _Okay._ Kageyama has a good brain for strategy and things like that, he thinks, watching Haizora surge a little ahead of Kinboshi to lead them. It sort of makes sense that he comes from a family of military people. He wonders if they’re all like this, so savvy and adaptable, and supposes he’ll find out soon enough.

Rainy Japan rolls by beneath Kinboshi’s wings. He sees little houses dotting the countryside, rice field after rice field after rice field, and they curve their flight path to avoid mountains like he’s never seen before. Occasionally they pass sprawling areas of clumped buildings, towns and cities, real ones. _How do you know which one is Kyoto?_ Hinata asks; even after the rain clears up (thankfully), the wind whistling in his ears makes a regular conversation impossible. **You can’t miss Kyoto.** Hinata just grumps inwardly at him, not satisfied with the answer or the condescension, and keeps watching the countryside go by under them.

They have been flying at least ten hours when he finally understands what Kageyama meant by that.

They fly over the ridge of a mountain and Kyoto is everywhere, an endless smear of shapes and colors streaking across the green of the land, three or four times the size of the largest settlements they’d already passed. _Gwah._ He tries to imagine how many people could live in a place like that—even if he went door-to-door for a year, could he meet all of them? **We need to land on the outskirts and leave Kinboshi and Haizora somewhere safe.** He nods as they start their descent, forgetting that Kageyama is ahead and can’t see him.

For their landing spot Kageyama selects an empty field and they dismount. They’re just off a road into town, and Kageyama eyes it as he starts taking his things off Haizora’s back. “I hope no one saw us come down.” Hinata unloads too, though he feels kind of dizzy from hunger and Kinboshi keeps throwing him concerned looks.

“How long into town, Kageyama-kun?”

“About an hour walking fast.” Kageyama hoists the satchel with his clothes and food onto his back, and checks his katana at his side. “We should be able to meet him before dark.”

“Who’s him?” Hinata asks, as he struggles to get his crossbow on his back over his bag.

Kageyama ignores him to take a moment with Haizora. “Stay safe and hidden. Don’t hunt livestock. We shouldn’t be more than a week or two, and we’ll come back here to find you.” 

Hinata turns to his own dragon, who presses her head into his chest. He feels a pang at the thought of leaving her like this, but it is all _for her_ , really. For the two of them. And for the world, he supposes, but sometimes he thinks that he loves Kinboshi more than the world.

“All right,” Kageyama says behind him, his voice strained from the goodbye, and Hinata drags himself away from Kinboshi, hoping that this is the last time he’ll ever have to do so. 

They set off and he watches the dragons flap back into the sky over their heads. “I gave Michimiya-san a letter to send on to Kyoto when they left,” Kageyama finally explains, gaze set on the dirt of the road. “It should have arrived within the past two or three days. So they’ll know we’re coming.”

“They?” Hinata cranes his neck to peer up at Kageyama’s profile. “Your family, you mean? The shogun?”

“No,” Kageyama snorts. “The shogun doesn’t live in Kyoto. The shogun’s house, where I grew up, is five hundred kilometers east of here in Kamakura.”

“Oh.” Hinata is suddenly overwhelmed with the sense that he’s imagined this trip all wrong. Who is he going to talk to about the dragons if not the shogun? “So… why are we in Kyoto?”

“Because I don’t have _leverage_ over the shogun,” Kageyama snaps. _Grumpy Kageyama-kun, oh boy_ , Hinata thinks glumly. “I have leverage over his successor. Who lives here, near the emperor, to increase his chances of being chosen when the current shogun dies.”

“So we’re meeting him now?” he asks, peeking down the road.

“I sure as hell hope not.”

And that is the last thing Kageyama says, aside from a grunted _yes_ or _no_ every so often. Hinata can’t get anything else out of him. Eventually he gives up with the questions and focuses on the countryside, which grows less rural with each step they take. By the time the edge of the city comes into view, Hinata has already seen more people—working in fields, and lounging outside houses, and playing in the path—than actually live on all of Karasuno. And they aren’t even _in_ Kyoto yet.

As the houses get closer together, the scatterings of people grow thicker, and before he knows it he is clinging to Kageyama’s sleeve in a bustling city street. They pass merchants and children and women in heavy make-up standing around corners. They give a wide birth to a stall selling, “Dragon teeth! Nails and scales and teeth! A fresh kill!” And he clucks with anger and fear. _Aren’t you scared too?_ he asks, but he doesn’t get an answer. A skittish bent to his alertness and his muttering their directions are the only signs that Kageyama’s new surroundings have affected him at all. 

Eventually they come to an avenue where the houses on one side turn to a long, tall stone wall—up ahead Hinata spies a huge metal gate. “Here,” Kageyama declares, grabbing the collar of his haori to stop him short and drag him to the opposite side of the street.

“What’s this place?” he demands, trying to see through the gate ahead, but the angle is bad. Kageyama says nothing and keeps his hand around Hinata’s collar protectively. 

A strange voice, a new one, echoes in the alley behind them: “Kageyama-san.”

Hinata jumps, but Kageyama flinches out of his skin, wheeling around so fast he nearly repays Hinata for breaking his nose. Hinata struggles to regain his balance, finally turning to see this stranger who knows Kageyama’s name.

He is about Kageyama’s height, with short dark hair and brown skin, and thick arms folded across his chest; the crease between his brows looks like it might be permanent. He wears a warrior’s hakama and a short simple haori, but on second glance Hinata notices that the layers are fabrics he’s never seen—rich textures, maybe even silk. “You’ve gotten taller,” he tells Kageyama, sounding a smidge dismayed, but more gruff than anything. Kageyama bows jerkily, and the man dips forward in acknowledgement. Hinata bows too, though he expects they’ve both forgotten about his presence.

“Iwaizumi-san,” Kageyama greets him, and _there’s_ the nervous crack in his voice that Hinata had expected earlier. He clamps a hand on Hinata’s shoulder and shoves him forward. “This is Hinata.” _What kind of introduction was that?_ he asks, glaring sideways at his soutai, but he gets ignored. Kageyama’s eyes are huge and wide and shiny. He looks at this Iwaizumi guy like he’s some sort of god. Seized with the idea, Hinata squints at Iwaizumi, searching for a spiritual glow.

Iwaizumi throws Hinata a skeptical glance, but nods. “All right.” And he strides forward, heading for the great metal gate. “Welcome to Kyoto. Follow me.”

 


	7. the struggles of the currently strong-willed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about the wait for this one; my new job/moving business continued well after august, it turns out. please enjoy the update, you've earned it!!

“I just want to know what Iwaizumi-san meant when he said, ‘You can’t see Oikawa-san looking like _that_.’” Hinata locks eyes with the grandmotherly woman trying to wrestle him out of his obi, and she gives him a look that screams, _you mean you don’t_ know?

“He was referring to the fact that we look like country bumpkins,” Kageyama offers coolly. Hinata glances at his soutai, who isn’t at all struggling against the army of attendants who dragged them here, to what looks like some kind of courtly staging area, and started stripping them down. 

Hinata lets the woman untie his obi but pouts through the ordeal. “I don’t understand that.” One of the attendants pulls Kageyama’s yukata off his shoulders, and his muscles twist under smooth skin as he extracts his arms from the sleeves.

“People in Kyoto get their fashions from China. We dress like field workers from a poor isolated village, because that’s what we are.”

“That’s not what _you_ are.”

Kageyama blinks at him, his expression blank and his mind… stunningly blank as well. It’s starting to grate on Hinata, that Kageyama can hear his thoughts but he can’t hear Kageyama’s. _I’m going to practice the screen thing later_ , he tells himself bitterly, not really caring if Kageyama catches that one or not. He ought to know how annoying he can be when he’s withholding. 

But it’s hard to say whether or not he does get the message. He just clears his throat after searching Hinata for a moment, and turns his attention to climbing out of his hakama. “Not technically, no.”

“What you are ‘technically’ is what you are,” Hinata grumbles, ever the literalist. More attendants (where do they come from? He’s never seen so many people in his life) arrive wheeling in two large wooden tubs, for whatever reason.

Kageyama is nearly naked now, down to his fundoshi, and a sudden chill finds Hinata’s torso—now he’s fully stripped too, and being manhandled into one of the tubs. He plunks into the water with a yelp and Kageyama lowers himself silently into the other bath.

And then they get scrubbed. It is horrible: the water is hot, which he isn’t used to, and the women use hard brushes and scrub mercilessly, _everywhere—_ on reflex he almost knocks one out after she thrusts her brush into a particularly bold spot _—_ and he hears Kageyama holler a few seconds later, probably dealing with the same issue. One of the older women forces his head under the water, and he has to swallow a scream. When he’s allowed up, she combs the mats from his hair, tsking. But at least the sight of the bath water darkening as he gets cleaner is sort of satisfying, in a gross way. 

He can’t decide if it’s the new cleanliness of his skin or the strange light fabric of the clothes they give him, but after he’s dry and dressed and the army of attendants wordlessly wheels away the tubs, he feels itchy. They are being nudged out of one chamber into another, and he can barely make out what the swarm of people around them are saying, with how fast they mutter to each other and the strange way they talk, some dialect unknown to him _—_ he catches a couple words like _dirty_ and _gutter_ and decides maybe he doesn’t want to understand them after all. Everything has been so _stressful_ lately, he sort of wants to scream, but his eyes fall closed and before he can make a sound, the voices empty around him. He blinks, and finds himself alone in what looks like a bedroom, with Kageyama nearby and frowning at him.

“What?”

His frown deepens and Hinata shrinks defensively. “I’ve never seen you not looking like a street urchin.”

“ _Urchin_ ,” Hinata squeaks, grabbing at his new clothes. That’s really the only part he hears at first, and then as Kageyama turns away he sort of backpedals, turning the comment over in his muddled head. Huh. “Wait, are you trying to say I look nice?” He looks down at himself: he’s wearing not just one yukata but two or three layered over each other, all different shades of red, and the cloth of the obi they’d given him is bright yellow with some kind of pattern on it. His hair has begun drying and feels lighter, fluffier than he can remember it feeling in a while. 

He glances up and Kageyama’s back is to him, his shoulders at his ears. 

“ _Is_ that what you’re saying, Kageyama?”

“Better than usual.”

“Oh, why couldn’t you just say _that_?” he protests, but he beams at the redness tipping Kageyama’s ears. 

“It’s disconcerting!”

“So are you.” Kageyama’s new clothes aren’t dramatically different from his old ones, since he’s always had nicer things than Hinata, but they seem less worn. The navy and green fabrics move stiffly around Kageyama as he circles the room. 

“There’s only one bed in here,” he grunts. 

Hinata had been too swept up in the impromptu bath and redressing to notice anything about where they are, but he pauses to blink at their surroundings now: a low bed sits in the center of the room, looking decadently soft, and the floors gleam, made of impressively shiny, rich-colored wood. The furnishings are sparse, but it’s still more than Hinata is used to, and everything looks so handsome—suddenly he feels afraid to move. He sinks into his spot in the center of the floor, eyeing Kageyama’s back.

“It’s not as if we need another bed, is it?”

“But they don’t know that.”

Understanding this point, Hinata’s nose scrunches, but before they can continue dissecting this development, one of the paneled doors slides open and there is one of the old women from before. She frowns and points at Hinata. “You.” 

He and Kageyama look at each other, and then back to the woman. Hinata points at himself. “Me?”

“Yes. Come to your room.”

“Oh,” he murmurs. There’s one mystery solved. He tosses Kageyama an apologetic look as he’s escorted out, and catches a pensive scowl on his soutai’s face just before the door slides shut. This exit is different from the way they came in, they’re in a covered hall enclosing a courtyard. It strikes him as vaguely familiar, but he’s never been in such a big building, nor in a courtyard, so that’s strange.

He’d felt the sun setting but the dark sky peeking out from behind the roof still surprises him. They’ll be going to bed now, and he might not see Kageyama again until the morning, which frightens him. His silent guide shuffles around the little garden, to the side opposite Kageyama’s room, and slides open another door, then gestures him inside. Relief washes over him; from here, he can easily sneak across the courtyard in a few minutes and rejoin Kageyama. He smiles and thanks her profusely as she waddles away, more than he needs to.

In his room—which, he notes grumpily, is smaller than Kageyama’s, but still nice—someone has placed the rucksack he’d carried in with him, and lost when they were being stripped down. He doesn’t feel right dragging over one of the cushions stacked in the corner, so he sits on the hard wooden floor instead, and sorts through his belongings. A knife lent to him by Noya-san, some dried salted fish tied up in a cloth for Kinchan, a second fundoshi, though maybe they plan on letting him keep the clothes he’s wearing now? Hitoka-chan’s letter, now slightly crumpled. He’ll have to remember to ask for directions tomorrow, when they see…

Hinata sits back, puzzled. He doesn’t really _know_ who it is they’re going to see tomorrow. The shogun’s successor, Oikawa-san, okay—but would he be a clean-cut military hero, or an untested young nobleman, or a corrupt rich type? He can remember all these sorts of people from stories, power and nobility only exist to him as fictional ideas. But here he is, wearing fancy clothes, with a room to himself in a real live Kyoto _palace_. He leans back, the luxurious bed and the shiny floors and the carved furniture looking different now that he’s caught up with the reality of where he is, in spite of who he is. And he’d thought for a long time that he’d never leave Karasuno, that he’d die there just like he was born there. Now he could… die anywhere, at any time.

He lets out a single wailing _gwahh_ to himself and flops back on the floor, still clinging to Hitoka’s letter. 

The door slides open and then closed again by the time he’s scrambled to sit up and see what it is. A tray of food sits on the ground, steam curling off the rice, and he remembers with a pang that he hasn’t eaten since they left that morning. 

Between devouring the meal and recovering from how sick he feels after inhaling that much in a few minutes, it’s another half an hour before he creeps back into the courtyard and around to Kageyama’s room. The lamps that once lit the covered corridor have been extinguish, so the moonlight escaping into the courtyard is his only guide—that and the vague tug of the soutai connection. Kageyama must not be focused on blocking him out.

He doesn’t knock to announce himself. The lights are out here too, but he spies movement from the bed, and pads over to fall in beside Kageyama.

“Did you know I was coming?”

“Yeah.” 

His eyes start to adjust to the darkness and he can see the outline of Kageyama, lying with his arms behind his head. He can’t have been asleep. “One day I’ll surprise you,” Hinata decides, as he lets himself sink into the bed. It’s as dizzyingly comfortable as he had imagined earlier, and his body finally recalls how long the day has been, but his mind keeps firing. No sleep yet.

He expects something defensive or snarky from Kageyama, maybe a _seems likely_ or a _good luck_ , but instead his soutai simply grunts. Hinata wants to touch him but his aura seems strange and fragile, it makes Hinata feel kind of—squirmy. And now that he’s here, Kageyama has thrown up his screen again.

“What’re you thinking about?”

Kageyama pauses before replying, “If I wanted you to know, you would.” _JERK_ , Hinata thinks loudly, and he smirks at Kageyama’s flinch.

“This guy we’re going to meet tomorrow, Oikawa-san, tell me what he’s like? You know him, right?”

“I was six the last time I saw him.”

“Oh, yeah.” Six year old Kageyama. He can sort of remember what that looked like, his hair cut shorter and his eyes too big for his face. “Why did you come to Karasuno, again?” Now that he has seen the way they live in places like this, it’s hard to imagine why anyone would leave. He hears Kageyama sigh, and watches his chest sinking. 

“Not ‘again.’”

“Huh?”

“Not ‘again,’ I never told you why before. It’s hard to explain.”

“You could try, at least.”  

Kageyama makes a vaguely irritated sound and shifts in the bed, and Hinata uses the opportunity to sneak under his arm; Kageyama makes a not-so-vaguely irritated sound instead. But it’s extremely comfortable and he knows Kageyama thinks so too, he doesn’t push Hinata away. Maybe he’s just irritated that he likes this as much as he does.

“I… wasn’t good enough. To be the shogun.” Hinata peeks up at him but can’t see much beyond his chin. “They told me that such a… selfish and unkind child would never make a fair leader. So they dismissed me.” Hinata pulls a face.

“But you were only six! How can you know what type of person a kid is going to be when he’s only six?”

“Do you think I’d make a fair leader?” Kageyama snorts, as if he knows the answer, but Hinata is shaking his head.

“I don’t see why not, and I know you’d listen to me about dragons because you already did, and that seems really fair to me.”

This results in a long silence on Kageyama’s end. Eventually, Hinata feels the arm around his shoulder pull him closer. “It doesn’t matter now,” Kageyama says, quieter than before. Hinata presses his face into the warmth of Kageyama’s chest. It’s funny, it should be too hot to be close together like this on a summer night, but the soutai connection makes the heat not just bearable but soothing. 

“ _I_ think it matters,” Hinata mutters—it’s frustrating, the way Kageyama thinks. Like he hasn’t already considered that they _are_ leaders, and that’s why they’re here, because leaders change things. He tries to formulate a protest, but then Kageyama is shifting around him, rolling them both onto their sides, and he loses his train of thought to squeaking in surprise. “What’re you doing!”

“Going to sleep.” Kageyama has wrapped himself around Hinata’s smaller body, his front pressed into Hinata’s back in a way that makes Hinata’s stomach quiver with some feeling he doesn’t care to identify. “Is this okay?” Kageyama sounds so blase about it, so is Hinata _imagining_ that there is something weird, and a _different_ kind of weird, from their usual sleeping arrangement? Kageyama’s breath hits the skin of his neck and the quivering gets worse. That weight on his back—he could faint from the rush to his head, but he also doesn’t want it to stop. Which has to be the soutai talking. Right.

“Um, yeah.”

“Good.” A gentle order: “Sleep.” Hinata nods, and swallows hard. He thinks he may never be calm enough to obey, but a few minutes later he senses that Kageyama has dozed off, and he falls asleep to the rhythm of his partner’s shallow breathing.

In the morning, he wakes up slowly at first, then in a maddening scramble, as he registers the room around him: sun filtering in from the courtyard, his hair mussed by the fabric over the bed, that weight of Kageyama’s body along his back, with a new extra pressure poking into the top of his thigh. A couple of seconds go by where he doesn’t mind this, or think too much of it, as he’s coated in the haziness of sleep. And then it hits him, very hard (oh no), like a gong struck by his ear—

And he scrambles out of Kageyama’s arms and across the bed, landing on his ass on the floor, too shocked to wince at the pain. Out the corner of his eye he can see that Kageyama remains passed out, but he refuses to let himself look for real, especially not at—he doesn’t want to see _that_ , doesn’t _need_ to see it, when he knows it’s there. The back of his neck _burns_.

“Oh,” says a voice he doesn’t recognize, and he turns with dawning horror to the door, where a younger-looking servant woman is holding a tray with food. She and Hinata stare at each other for a second or two, both their faces growing red, and then she carefully sets down the tray and scuttles away. 

Hinata finally brings himself to exhale, but it doesn’t help much, so he buries his face in his hands and tries to stuff down a whimper, half-successfully. _It’s not about me. It’s just a coincidence. It didn’t happen because of me._ _No, it’s probably just the soutai thing, because it feels so nice—but that would mean it_ is _because of me._ They had never slept that way before, exactly, which means this could have happened before and Hinata had just never noticed. _It’s normal. I get it, too_. Oh, no, he hadn’t thought of—what if it happens to him next time and Kageyama _sees_? 

Kageyama can read his thoughts, after all.

Oh, that’s… bad.

Really bad, considering he can’t stop this train of thought, and the last thing he wants is Kageyama knowing that he knows that Kageyama is… got a… 

Spurred on by the fear clutching at his throat, his face pinched in concentration, Hinata makes the sincerest, toughest mental effort to make his _dumb freaking screen_ work, finally, _please_ , this time it has to work. 

“What smells good?”

He starts. Kageyama’s voice sounds normal—clueless. Hinata peeks over his shoulder to check the bed, where Kageyama is stirring, his eyes still closed but his nose wrinkled, testing the air. _He can’t hear me. He definitely can’t hear me._ Hinata stays silent, waiting for a voice in his head to contradict him, but there’s nothing. 

 _I did it._ He smiles into his hands. And all because Kageyama had to be a gross pervert one morning, but _still_. Now he knows what it takes.

“A lady brought food,” Hinata squeaks, then clears his throat; he turns away quickly and scoots over to the tray. It’s only enough for one person. His stomach growls over his distracted thoughts. “I think mine’s in my room. I’ll see you in a bit.”

Hinata hops to his feet and there’s a groan as Kageyama sits up in bed, then another, quieter, more complicated noise as Hinata is slipping out the door; over his shoulder he hears Kageyama muttering to himself, “Shit. Shit.”

* * *

They meet in the courtyard between their rooms about an hour later, with instructions from the staff to wait there for Iwaizumi-san. 

Hinata feels considerably recovered from the earlier weirdness. If he doesn’t think too much about it, the whole situation strikes him as laughable, now. And he’s positive that Kageyama has no idea what happened, so he locks it up in a dark corner of his mind and resolves to forget about it.

He and Kageyama share a bench while they wait, and after a grunted exchange about how good the food is here, Hinata hears voices coming from the other side of a bush and leans around to get a better look. There are two servants carrying stacks of clothes, muttering to each other as they move through the corridor. They are speaking too softly for him to hear, until one of them giggles and raises her voice— _like Oikawa-san!,_ she says, and the other servant shushes her. Hinata dips back behind the bush, frowning. He hears the voices trailing off as the women leave.

“Oikawa-san. That's who we’re meeting today.”

Kageyama opens his mouth to reply, but another voice interrupts him. “That’s him.” Iwaizumi-san stands in the arched entrance to the courtyard. Kageyama pops to his feet immediately, and Hinata scrambles to mirror him as Iwaizumi gives them a once-over. “Good, you’re looking better.”

Kageyama frowns, even though last night he’d been in perfect agreement with Iwaizumi’s assessment, and Hinata laughs. Kageyama swings at him and he ducks. Iwaizumi squints at them and Kageyama shrinks under his judgment, which gets another giggle out of Hinata before Iwaizumi announces, “Let’s not draw this out any longer.” He starts out of the courtyard fast enough that Kageyama almost trips trying to keep up with him.

Iwaizumi leads them under archways and around corners and out of the building entirely, heading for another section of the palace complex. They cross a wide yard where two men in the most incredible clothes Hinata has ever seen are holding a conversation. Iwaizumi-san pauses to give them a bow, and Kageyama does the same; eventually Hinata notices and follows suit, flopping so far forward he stumbles. When he looks up, one of the men is blinking down at him, his face painted white and his eyebrows smeared on with charcoal, high on his forehead. Hinata gapes until Kageyama’s hand latches on to his arm and drags him along.

“Don’t stare, dumbass,” he scolds, once the men are out of earshot, and releases him roughly. Hinata cranes to get another look at them while still keeping pace with Iwaizumi-san.

“Who were they!”

“They’re kuge,” Iwaizumi replies from up ahead. He sounds unmoved by Hinata’s ignorance. “Members of the emperor’s imperial court.”

“The _emperor_.” The emperor is somewhere in this very complex, doing… doing emperor-y things! Kageyama gives him a sour look. **You’re making a fool out of us.** Hinata jumps at Kageyama’s voice in his mind, then surges ahead, glaring. _You’re just sensitive because you’ve got a crush on Iwaizumi-san._ **Shut up! Dumbass!**

As they weave through the maze of outbuildings, they encounter more members of the kuge, Hinata’s bows improving in leaps and bounds, and finally they arrive at a larger structure, lively voices and clinking metal—swords?—audible from within. “All right,” says Iwaizumi—half to them, half to himself, his eyes narrowing. He seems like a cool sort of guy, and Hinata wonders what it is that’s making him tense up like that. But it’s nothing compared to the way Kageyama’s shoulders have tightened to his ears. Hinata thinks he might even see him shaking a little. _Are you okay?_ No response.

Iwaizumi slides open the door to the building, and they step into a long, open room, with a high ceiling and a depressed dirt floor at the center, where a spar is currently taking place. 

“Makki-chan, you’re not very good at this, are you?”

This voice comes from a guy with dark, messy hair, one of several observing the fight from the sidelines. They aren’t dressed like the kuge, but wear simple, elegant clothes like Iwaizumi’s and the ones lent to Hinata and Kageyama. And they’re all massive.

The spar is a blur, swords clashing over and over, making Hinata rock forward on his toes as he watches—a good spar always makes him want to fight, too. One of the contenders, who has light reddish hair, answers his critic dryly: “Am I bad, or is he just very good?”

His back is to them, but the red guy’s opponent laughs, a kind of ultra-charmed tinkling sound that seems entirely contrary to the way he rapidly backs his enemy into a corner with a series of precise, fast, forceful cuts. 

At Hinata’s side, he can feel Kageyama buzzing—not the way Hinata is buzzing, something deeper than that. His aura pulses with older, darker things. Neither of them moves when Iwaizumi steps deeper into the room, drawing the eye of the messy hair guy, who seems like the most senior of the sideline observers. 

“Ah, Iwaizumi-san joins us.”

Taking advantage of the distraction, the better dueler hooks the sword out of his opponent’s—out of Makki-chan’s hand. It flies up in the air and clatters to the ground nearby.

Makki-chan just shrugs and glides to join his snarky friend, telling him, “You can go next.” He doesn’t seem the slightest bit upset about being defeated. Weird.

The spar’s victor stays with his back to them for a moment, shoulders rising and falling as he catches his breath, and then he turns to greet Iwaizumi. The best dressed of the lot by far, he smiles brilliantly, soft brown hair swept to the side with a perfect curve, his features smooth and very handsome, so much that Hinata blushes and ducks his head.

“Iwa-chan. I haven’t seen you all morning.” The messy hair guy mutters something to Makki-chan, who snorts, and the handsome guy gestures at them with his katana—as elegant as the one Kageyama carries, maybe more—the gesture full of humor but somehow believably threatening, too. “I was beginning to think you’d gotten lost, or stuck up a tree or something.” Hinata almost gasps at this comment, and looks immediately to Iwaizumi—he doesn’t seem like the type to handle teasing well. But his expression doesn’t shift, he only sighs, as if tired, and then he steps to the side to give the man a full view of Hinata and Kageyama in the doorway.

“Oikawa-san,” says Kageyama, dipping forward. 

Hinata bows with him, even though he can feel the temperature in the room drop when Oikawa lays eyes on Kageyama, and he doesn’t know where his place in this encounter is, not anymore. The faces of the men watching have gone pale, too, and many of them look at Kageyama in the same vein as Oikawa, with less intensity.

It’s not that Oikawa’s face falls, more that the blood drains from behind his fixed smile, and his eyes grow a fraction wider, making him look not so handsome anymore but utterly, viscerally terrifying. _Has he always been so frightening, since they were kids?_ No wonder Kageyama didn’t look forward to… extorting him. Oh no. That’s _their_ mission here, getting what they want out of this guy. Hinata’s knees go weak. 

A good ten seconds of silence pass in which Oikawa stares at Kageyama and his grin shrinks to nothing, centimeter by centimeter, and then he gestures his sword at the sidelines again, this time without an ounce of humor. “Get out. All of you.” As the group stands and files out in silence befitting a funeral, Oikawa turns away again, sweeping over to hang his katana on a rear wall crowded with the finest selection of weapons Hinata has ever seen, but his fingers linger around the hilt. Hinata has to move aside to let Oikawa’s friends leave, not one of them so much as glancing at him (this is starting to get annoying), all watching Kageyama. An especially tall man, made taller with the cone-like shape of his hair, stops the procession for a moment to glare Kageyama down. Hinata tries firing questions at his soutai: _who are they? Why do they hate you so much? Are we safe around Oikawa-san?_ But Kageyama either doesn’t hear or isn’t listening, his eyes trained on the wood beneath their feet. 

Hinata makes eye contact with the last one out, who slides the door closed behind them. He has long black hair framing his face, and a calculating, reserved expression. He looks at Hinata andmakes a tiny _hmph_ , then disappears behind the shut door.

“How long did you know?” 

Oikawa’s voice comes out strangled into shrillness, and for a moment Hinata is confused as to who he’s addressing. 

But then he wheels around and his manic eyes are tearing into Iwaizumi. He holds his katana tight enough that the muscles along his arm bulge. “You knew he was coming. You hid it from me, for how long?”

Iwaizumi’s somber calm scares Hinata even more than Oikawa’s hysteria, but the more upset Oikawa grows, the deeper Iwaizumi digs in his heels. “A few weeks,” he says in a low voice.

“He shouldn’t _be here_ ,” Oikawa shrieks; the loss of control in his own words startles him, and he shrinks back with a sharp inhale. Kageyama hasn’t moved, he just stands with his head bowed and a furrow in his brow. Hinata wants to melt into the wall. He didn’t know what he was expecting this to be like, but in his head it was never so… tense. Probably because Kageyama never told him how bad things would be for him here—seeing Oikawa, Hinata can almost understand the omission. _This guy is the future ruler of Japan._ Oikawa’s eyes dart across the ground, his katana stirs in his hand. _Or, the person we have to defeat to make Kageyama the ruler._ He swallows with some difficulty. Iwaizumi sighs loudly.

“He’s not staying.”

Kageyama lifts his head. “Actually, I’ll stay as long as I have to.”

Oikawa has calmed considerably; he wipes his face on the back of his hand, and gives Kageyama a withering look. “Tobio-chan, it’s so good to see you. My, how you’ve grown.”

Kageyama blows through the sarcasm, stepping down to join Oikawa in the fencing arena. “You don’t want me here and I don’t want to be here, but I’m not leaving until you give me what you want.”

Oikawa’s lip curls, and then he tosses Kageyama a disarming smile. _It’s amazing how quickly he changes moods_ , Hinata thinks dumbly. “I’m afraid I can’t let you take Iwa-chan home with you, he’s mine.” A muscle flinches in Iwaizumi’s cheek. Kageyama ignores the joke, which strikes Hinata as about right for him.

“I need winter rations for a hundred and fifty people. My village, Karasuno.”

Oikawa’s head tilts an inch to the side. Then he raises a hand, and points… “And who’s Chibi-chan?” Right at Hinata.

Both Iwaizumi and Kageyama turn to look at Hinata, and it’s been so long that people paid attention to him, his stomach drops just having three pairs of eyes on him. “My companion,” says Kageyama with unusual gentleness. “Hinata Shouyou. Also from Karasuno.”

“And why is he here?” Oikawa adds, eyebrow quirked.

“Because it would have been foolish for me to come alone.”

“But that’s not it,” Hinata says, without thinking—out the corner of his eye he can see Kageyama bristle as he moves closer to Oikawa too. “There was something else we wanted to talk to you about—”

“Give us the food,” Kageyama interrupts, raising his voice to drown out Hinata’s. Hinata stares at him.

“But, Kageyama—”

“Do that and I won’t make any trouble for you.” Kageyama barrels on like Hinata isn’t standing there, watching him with an open mouth and a glare. _The dragons, Kageyama!_ In his head he is screaming this. _Kinboshi and Haizora. What the hell do you think you’re doing?_

For the third time today, his pleas go unheard—though now he’s certain it’s not deafness but willful ignorance. In a rare moment, he collapses into anger with such force that it steals the words from his lungs. It’s like being pinned against his will; he doesn’t know what to say, what to _yell_ , to get Kageyama to listen to him—and he can see the focus rapidly moving away from him, back to Kageyama and Oikawa, who tests his katana in the air before him. Something about his paralysis feels _more_ than natural, and he wonders if this is a fucked up extension of the soutai, him being held back by Kageyama’s superior mental will. 

 _But I’ll always beat him in a contest of wills._ So it can’t be that. It’s just him not knowing what to do. Being weak. Not having the tools he needs to get what he wants.

“Have you been practicing your swordsmanship?”

“Of course.”

Anger nearly blinds Hinata, but not too much he can’t see that Kageyama’s katana is missing from his side, probably lying back in that room where they’d woken up this morning.

Oikawa raises his katana in the space between him and Kageyama, squinting down the blade with one eye shut. “Let’s have a spar.”

“Oikawa,” Iwaizumi mutters: a warning.

“For old times’ sake,” Oikawa answers brightly, as if to say _no harm done_ , and he gestures to the armory lining the back wall. “Go on, Tobio. Since you didn’t bring your own.” Kageyama watches Oikawa for a long moment, deciding. Hinata can feel himself shaking with rage—anger at Kageyama, for ignoring him, at Oikawa for—existing. His limbs moving of their own accord, he starts to climb down into the sparring ground, to throw himself between Kageyama and Oikawa and maybe just _scream_ , but a hand folds around the neck of his yukata: he looks up in indignation and there is Iwaizumi-san, scowling at him, holding him back. He doesn’t say a word, just shakes his head slowly, and the fight melts out of Hinata’s body for the time being. There’s something commanding in Iwaizumi’s glance, a spirit of authority to which Hinata surrenders.

“Fine,” Kageyama finally accepts. He trudges over to the wall and picks over the swords, Oikawa smirking at his back.

“The last time we did this, it was with wooden swords, wasn’t it?” Oikawa muses. “You’d only just started learning, but you were vicious. Of course they hated you, you beat everyone your age.” The men who were in here before, a few of them looked about eighteen or nineteen, same as Kageyama. And they’d looked at him with such disdain. Hinata puts a couple puzzle pieces together, miraculously—they must be the same boys Kageyama grew up with. “You never beat me, though,” Oikawa adds, almost laughing. “But you say you’ve been practicing. So who knows what’ll happen.”

Kageyama has plucked a sword from the wall. Not the largest or the most decorated one, but a standard katana. Hinata feels Iwaizumi’s hold on him loosen as Kageyama steps into the ring to meet Oikawa, but the desire to throw himself into their fight has receded. Now he’s battling a knot of apprehension in his stomach, watching this unfold. Kageyama stops opposite Oikawa, saying nothing. They raise their blades in tandem and the knot in Hinata’s stomach becomes a searing pain. This doesn’t feel right. “Iwaizumi-san,” he whispers urgently, turning to his fellow bystander, who stands looking inscrutable but for the tension in his jaw. “I don’t think they should—”

Oikawa’s sword comes down over Kageyama’s with such force that Hinata can see Kageyama shudder from twenty feet away. He pushes Oikawa off and stumbles back, just a step, but even Hinata knows that a single step—a single hiccup in composure, a narrow opening in the armor—is all it takes for someone as good as Oikawa to get the upper hand. And if wasn’t clear from his spar earlier, it becomes abundantly clear now: Oikawa is good. He’s really, _really_ good. Hinata watches him strike at Kageyama on an angle, forcing him to throw up his sword for a block and further lose his balance. Oikawa is _good_. _Maybe better than Kageyama._ Hinata’s stomach hurts.

Or, maybe not: Kageyama makes a frustrated noise, one of those ones that starts up deep in his chest. Hinata has heard them before and even _he_ thinks this one comes off a bit terrifying—for Oikawa, who hasn’t seen Kageyama since he was small, it’s a wild animal’s sound, the roar of a tiger or a boar; he sinks back, anticipating a charge of some kind, a matching gesture; instead Kageyama slashes high and fast, with his familiar snake-like precision. _Wrong animal._ Oikawa gets his blade up just in time to stop Kageyama’s katana, inches from landing a touch to his neck.

They hang for a moment with their swords locked. Oikawa smiles. A grimace distorts Kageyama’s features, and for a moment Hinata thinks he wouldn’t recognize him like this. He glances sideways at Iwaizumi—for the first time since they got here, there’s a sliver of alarm in his expression. Which doesn’t bring Hinata any peace of mind.

With the slick sound of metal skating over metal, Oikawa and Kageyama break their deuce and move swiftly into a series of fast-moving strikes and parries, Kageyama’s offensive moving Oikawa back across the floor, but Oikawa goes in circles, makes him chase. “Winter rations, Tobio,” Oikawa hums, sounding thoughtful. Hinata can remember the panic he’d felt having Kageyama drive him backwards in a spar, but Oikawa—is tiring him out, making him work and backing up fast enough that his defense comes easily in comparison to the effort of keeping up with him. “It’s really not much to ask for, is it?” Oikawa isn’t even out of breath—he’s probably talking just to show off how easy this is for him—but Kageyama pants, lunging at his opponent, sweat breaking out on his brow. _Stop doing that,_ he thinks at Kageyama fiercely. _He’s tricking you. Stop being such an idiot!_ But there’s no helping Kageyama, he doesn’t _listen_ to Hinata. The anger from earlier prickles in him again, a distant rumble starting in his chest.

“I’m sure you know that we could easily supply you what you need,” Oikawa drawls. Kageyama’s strikes have grown weaker against the neatness of his parries. “It’s sort of a sad demand, actually.” Kageyama swings and misses Oikawa’s blade entirely, stumbling forward. “Child’s play. Like you haven’t grown at all.” With Kageyama recovering his footing, Oikawa shifts to the offensive again and swings down hard; Kageyama is knocked back, landing in the dirt on his ass, wheezing. In a single move, Oikawa has him disarmed, and he stands over the defeated Kageyama, casting him into shadow. It reminds Hinata of the last time _he_ sparred with Kageyama, only with reversed results. “Only an idiot would use the kind of power you have to ask for something so inconsequential.” Barely contained rage bubbles under the surface of his words. “And that’s why I’m here, and you’re down there.”

Iwaizumi leaves Hinata’s side to march for Oikawa, prepared to pull him off Kageyama, but Oikawa is already backing away, throwing his sword into the dirt as he charges for the exit. The two of them lock eyes as Oikawa sweeps past, with Iwaizumi grunting, “Do you feel cool now?” Just as Oikawa seethes, “This is your fault.”

Oikawa leaves like that, in a dramatic _whoosh_ , and Iwaizumi trails him without a word to either Hinata or Kageyama.

Kageyama is still sitting in the dirt, his eyes closed, his chin on his chest. The sight of him sitting like that, looking so sad and defeated and small, raises in Hinata a mix of pity and fury. _Oikawa is right._ It’s sad, the way Kageyama decided to beg for a pittance. There was so much more he could have asked for—so much that Hinata had thought he would. 

“You’re a coward.”

Kageyama scoffs through his teeth. He gets to his feet, shaking out his shoulders. “Fuck off.”

“I won’t,” Hinata cries, surging toward him, opening his mind and raising the volume of his thoughts loud, loud as he can manage, so that Kageyama can hear him scream: _coward. Coward. Coward coward coward!_ He grimaces and shrinks from Hinata in disgust.

“What’s your problem?”

“It’s _you_ , you’re my problem!” Hinata lunges to grab Kageyama but he leaps back, alarmed. “You didn’t even _try_ to talk to Oikawa about the dragons, you gave up before we’d even started—”

“I haven’t given up—did you even think about how they’d react if I said that right away?”

“I don’t care how he’d react! We have _dragons,_ Kageyama!”

Kageyama points to the door where Oikawa had just left, leaning toward him. “Do you think that guy gives a fuck whether or not we’ve got dragons?”

“Do _you_ give—do _you_ care! Do you care at all!” He hears this come out of him as a scream, scratching his throat. His eyes go blurry with unshed tears. “Would you even care if Haizora died if you didn’t have to feel it too?” It is an honest question; he doesn’t know. 

“Shut the fuck up,” Kageyama spits, grabbing Hinata by the front of his shirt like he means to be threatening, or something, but Hinata has slipped into an intensity that doesn’t know fear. He glaring right up into Kageyama’s face, his eyes lit with anger, his nails latching into his soutai’s wrist. And he can see that it throws Kageyama, he can feel the blip of uncertainty, the bond between them crackling to life and making tempers flare higher and higher. Somewhere in the mountains he can feel Kinboshi’s spirit ballooning the sun in his chest, and it overtakes him, a livid and endlessly powerful rage. His scar, his very own star, twinges as if awoken and agitated again.

“You’re supposed to be _on my side_ , Kageyama!”

“I am, you dumbass,” Kageyama shouts, shaking him, but he can’t break the look of violence they share.

“They’ll kill them, all the dragons, every day we wait—”

“Don’t talk to me like I don’t know what’s at stake!”

Hinata’s nails bite into him hard enough to draw blood and Kageyama drops him, just as Hinata cries at the top of his voice, “Then listen to me! You fucking idiot!” 

Swearing under his breath, Kageyama starts to slink away and nurse his wrist.

_Coward._

And that’s when Hinata charges him.

He slams into Kageyama’s side with his shoulder, making wild war cries with what air remains in his lungs, nearly knocking Kageyama to the ground but not quite. Yelling nonsense in reply he gets an arm around Hinata’s torso and throws him as far as he can. Hinata lands on his feet: every move he makes feels hypercharged, he could face any physical obstacle right now and come out unscathed, but his mind drowns in anger at Kageyama. He inhales and looks around him and the only thing he can see and feel and hear and taste is anger.

Nishinoya-san hadn’t told him about this part. About what it’s like to fight someone you carry in your soul. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to frighten them, because it does frighten him, some part of him hunkers down in an unaffected corner of his mind and waits out the storm in terror.

He throws himself at Kageyama again; his own scream tears into his ears. This time he succeeds in tackling the larger boy to the ground and he starts to _hit_ , with his fists and the flats of his hands and his fingers, too imprecise and fast to do more than sting, especially when he can’t see anything through the crying—but he hits and hits and hits until he doesn’t have the voice to scream anymore, and his arms ache, and the voice saying his name grows audible, “Hinata! Hinata…” And it echoes in his head, **Hinata, Hinata!**  

An arm pushes away his fists, and he feels a hand on his face, wiping his eyes. His scar is aching. He shoves away Kageyama’s touch and scrambles, blinking enough that he can make out the shape of his soutai crouched before him, mouth hanging open. Silent. Just like with Oikawa. 

“You don’t even _try_ ,” Hinata manages, voice strained by the tears, head bowed. Kageyama still says nothing. Hinata could hit him again. 

This is it—the two of them—the rest of their lives. It’s unfair. He lifts his head to meet Kageyama’s watery gaze, finally clear-eyed.

“I wish it weren’t you.” 

And then he leaves—flies out of the room, blind to everything but his feet on the ground. Soutai or no, there must somewhere far away enough for him to run, and truly leave Kageyama behind.

* * *

“You dumbass, you fucking dumbass,” Kageyama says to the emptiness of Hinata’s room. His rucksack is gone, too.

He finds one of the servants and tells her that the grounds need to be searched immediately, that no one can let Hinata leave, but in the end he gets a stern talking-to from the head of the palace guard. A citizen is allowed to leave of his own free will—someone may have seen a young red-haired man leaving, yes—but it’s not the duty of the guard to play babysitter.

So Kageyama spends the rest of the afternoon combing the complex by himself, scanning every nook and cranny where an angry Hinata might have hid to seethe in private. He ignores the fact that it’s unlike to Hinata to let his anger stew; he’s more likely to bolt, but there’s no searching for him beyond the walls of the palace. And Kageyama clings to the last shreds of hope he has. 

He waits to reach out to Haizora because he fears the answer to his question, and it’s just as disheartening as he imagined: Kinboshi has hid herself from him, spiritually and physically, just like Hinata had done to Kageyama. She must’ve sensed the turmoil between the humans, and she had chosen her rider over her soutai. That stuns him, even though he would never have doubted Haizora to do the same. It’s a testament to what Hinata believes, to his mission.

_Would you even care if Haizora died if you didn’t have to feel it too?_

Fuck Hinata for that, really, he thinks. Giving up, he takes his katana out into a practice yard and takes swings at a dummy. Fuck Hinata for a lot of things he’d said—Kageyama lays a hit on the target for every one he can remember. _Would you even care. You’re a coward. You’re supposed to be on my side. You don’t even try. I wish it weren’t you._ The dummy bleeds straw. The sun is setting and it makes his chest ache. It must be the sun.

Hinata was right about at least one of those things: Kageyama is a coward. Today he had been too afraid to broach the topic of dragons with Oikawa—not afraid that Oikawa would oppose them, but afraid that he didn’t have the words to convince him. Politics, the art of being liked. _Everyone hated you_ ; Oikawa hadn’t needed to remind him.

So it’s understandable, that _I wish it weren’t you_. Deserved, even if it hurts. Hinata’s plan might have worked if only his political ace-in-the-hole weren’t shit at politics. He is not good enough for Hinata—he thinks of that smile of his, of sunlight—no, definitely not good enough. 

Breathing heavily and sweating through the layers of his fine new yukata, Kageyama collapses to the ground in the yard. He missed his katana earlier and now he rubs his cheek against the hilt, staring off into space. The yard is near the wall and the sounds of the city nightlife have started up, laughing and shouting just within earshot. 

The thing is, it doesn’t matter what Hinata _wishes_. They’re soutai. Running away doesn’t change that. If Hinata even _had_ run away—it seems obvious he’s not here, that he escaped to somewhere, but he isn’t the type to run nowhere for long. Not when he’s just accused Kageyama of unforgivable cowardice. Which means he must not be running away, but _to_ something. This is an excellent realization—or it would be, if Kageyama had any idea where that something might be. And he has nothing; Hinata has never been to the mainland, knows no one here, probably doesn’t even have a basic handle of the geography. He is armed only with his determination and… a dragon. He could be up to anything, or anywhere. 

“I heard your friend went missing.”

He shuts his eyes at the sound of Iwaizumi’s voice. It’s just as he remembers it, bizarre considering Iwaizumi was nine the last time they met, and now he is very much a grown man, but memory is strange that way. 

“He’s gone,” Kageyama answers simply. He can’t will himself to get up off the ground, but it works out all right: Iwaizumi lowers himself to sit in the grass nearby. He wears one of his many frowns, this particular depression of his lips striking Kageyama as… a little concerned, maybe. 

“And?”

“And, he’s not here.”

“And what are you going to do about it?” Iwa clarifies, raising an eyebrow. The light has died fast but a man has already come around to light the lamps along the paths, so he can see Iwaizumi’s face, glowing orange. 

“There’s nothing I _can_ do. I have no idea where he went. He bolted.” Kageyama drags his knees to his chest, trying not to pout too obviously.

Iwaizumi stays silent for a moment, still with that frown, then asks, “Who is he to you?” It’s a question that has many answers, all of which are sensitive information. He swallows and watches Iwaizumi over the top of his knee. He looks so different, but also exactly the same.

“Can I trust you?” It’s a stupid question: he knows he can, and does. Really, he’s just asking how much of an idiot he’s going to feel like in the morning, when it dawns on him that he told Iwaizumi everything.

Iwaizumi sits forward, folding his legs under him, thick arms over his chest. He has the countenance of an older brother, which embarrasses Kageyama deeply in light of what Hinata had said earlier, about _crushes_. “Do you think you _should_ trust me?” he says. Oikawa’s smiling face pops into Kageyama’s head, and he shudders.

“I…”

“Did you come here to take the shogunate from Oikawa?”

Kageyama blinks at him. The way Iwaizumi says this, it’s a loaded question, but the reply comes easily to him. “No.”

A tiny smile finds Iwaizumi’s lips. “Do you know why I asked you that?”

“Because you’re bound to serve Oikawa for life. And if I were against him, I would be against you, too.”

The smile fades. “That’s right.” Kageyama nods. He remembers them as boys, how he’d always felt sorry for Iwaizumi, being born into his place as Oikawa’s guard and advisor. He never had any choice in the matter. But then again, none of them had. “I can’t imagine you’re lying to me, Kageyama,” Iwa sighs. “But if you are, we’re both fucked. Remember that.” 

Kageyama shakes his head. “I’m not lying.” Chin on his knee, he finally utters a sentence that’s been burrowed at the back of his mind for weeks: “I don’t… want to be shogun.” In the corner of his vision he spies Iwaizumi’s shoulders sinking in relief. 

“Then what do you want?”

“Hinata and I ride dragons.” _That’s not an answer_ , he tells himself, even though it’s enough to make Iwaizumi go stiff. “We’re trying to end the country’s war with them. We think we can get people to train them and live peacefully.” Hinata is right, that while he agrees with his soutai, it is Hinata himself whose desire really powers the fight for change. So what does he, Kageyama Tobio, want? He can see Hinata’s face so clearly in his head. It makes him ache, in his body, infuriating—unlike a dagger or an arrow, he can’t guard against this injury. 

“Are you serious?” says Iwaizumi, under his breath.

“Yes. Hinata ran off because he was angry I didn’t bring it up to Oikawa.”

“Shit.” Iwaizumi sits back, squinting at the night sky over them. “Dragons. And you… ride—”

Kageyama nods. “It’s a long story.”

“I fucking bet.” Iwa takes a deep breath and meets his eye. “You were right not to tell Oikawa. I’ll talk to him.”

“Thank you, Iwaizumi-san!” This comes out of him in a blustery, earnest rush, true and genuine gratitude, and Iwaizumi smiles again. He watches as Kageyama straightens up, trying to seem reserved. 

“You know, Kageyama.” Kageyama perks up but tries to contain any more visible enthusiasm at the attention. Iwa is rubbing his chin. “You’ve been through all that with the short kid, and you don’t have any idea where he’d go?” Kageyama gapes—it’s a good point, but all he can feel at this reminder is hollow. After it becomes obvious he doesn’t have an answer, Iwa waves him off and starts to stand. “Sleep on it. I’ve got to go make sure Oikawa isn’t plotting your murder.”

“Do you think he would?” Kageyama demands, utterly serious. Iwaizumi snorts.

“I don’t know. He’s unpredictable. I can’t read his mind.” Kageyama flushes at the irony. “Goodnight, Kageyama-san,” Iwaizumi tells him, with a bow, and he is gone before Kageyama can get to his feet and return it.

* * *

The servants are accustomed to his presence in these quarters, even late at night. “Iwaizumi-san,” one greets him, bowing. “Oikawa-san is in his bedroom.” Iwa nods, and keeps down the corridor. The night is summery, lovely and warm, the sky clear. In a complex not too far from here, where the rest of Oikawa’s posse has their rooms, the bed that’s technically his sits empty yet another night. He can’t remember the last time he slept there. But it’s unimportant, not a topic he dwells on.

From where he stands in the bedroom door Oikawa is a lump on the wide bed, wearing the silk turquoise yukata he reserves for sleep. The only light comes from an oil lamp at his bedside. When Iwaizumi moves into the room, he wraps his arms around his head, shielding his face.

“If you’ve come to tell me to stop being a brat, you should know I’ll do no such thing.”

Iwaizumi smiles. To himself, he supposes, since Oikawa has hidden his eyes. Earlier when he’d chased Oikawa out of the sparring room, he’d gotten a door shut in his face before they could talk, so this is their first proper encounter of the day. He comes to stand over Oikawa’s prone figure on the bed, and finally spies a brown eye peeking up around his forearm. Oikawa’s brow furrows at Iwaizumi’s smile, childish. Iwaizumi reaches down and runs a thumb along his jaw, feeling traces of stubble on the smooth skin, until a scoff bursts from Oikawa and he rolls away to lie on his stomach.

“Don’t touch me! You traitor.” There’s no bite to the accusation. Iwaizumi lowers himself to sit in the spot Oikawa vacated.

“You wouldn’t have let him through the gates.”

“That’s true!” Oikawa wails, his face shoved into the bed, muffling his voice. He pops up to inhale deeply and add, “He should never have been allowed.”

“I wanted to see what he was up to.”

“Robbing me of the shogunate!”

“Kageyama doesn’t want your power.”

“Oh, that’s very likely.” His sniffling is to the detriment of his sarcasm. The corner of Iwa’s mouth turns up, looking down at him, all stuffy-nosed and messy-haired and angry.

“My instincts are saying he wasn’t lying.”

Oikawa glares at him, the light of calculation in his eyes. He lowers his chin to his arm. “He told you that? You actually asked him?” Iwaizumi nods. Oikawa’s glare deepens. He trusts Iwaizumi’s judgment and Iwaizumi knows this. He only struggles with his pride, when it comes to admitting his assumptions are wrong, and that struggle plays across his face right now. “All right!” he finally says, flopping onto his back. “Fine. Maybe Tobio is stupid enough to come here for—a few months' worth of dried fish and rice, whatever.”

“I didn’t say that.”

Surprise smooths the wrinkle in Oikawa’s brow. “What?”

Here comes the difficult part. Sighing, Iwaizumi slips his hands around Oikawa’s arms, tugging him to sit up. He does, and they face each other cross-legged in the familiar comfort of the bed. Oikawa holds one of Iwaizumi’s hands in two of his own, thumbs nervously tracing the creases of his palm. There’s a puckered quality to Oikawa’s frown that Iwaizumi recognizes as fear; it’s so subtle you would miss it if you didn’t know to look.

“Why is he here?”

“You know the short kid? His friend.”

Oikawa blinks—he wasn’t expecting Hinata’s involvement. “The chibi-chan?”

Iwaizumi clears his throat. “Kageyama says they ride dragons together.”

Oikawa blinks again. He sits back, letting go of Iwaizumi’s hand. He looks at his lap, then looks up at Iwaizumi again, and then—he bursts out laughing. “That,” he wheezes, “is the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard.”

Iwaizumi bows his head. Oikawa keeps laughing, hysterical, little giggle bubbling out of him. “I believe him,” Iwaizumi offers quietly, but Oikawa is laughing too hard to hear. He falls back and stuffs his face into the mattress and keeps laughing. “Oikawa,” Iwaizumi mutters. And then a little louder, “Tooru! He’s telling the truth!”

With Oikawa’s face buried in the bed, the sound of laughter dies away. Slowly Oikawa sits up. He stares at Iwaizumi; his mouth has puckered again. “No…”

“They want to… ‘end the war with the dragons,’ he said. I think they came here seeking your help.” Oikawa lowers his head, his eyes falling closed.

“Do you remember when we were kids and the sword sensei’s dog had puppies, and we were all allowed to visit them, and they’d run away from Tobio whenever he tried to pet them?” This is a memory Iwaizumi didn’t even know he had, but as soon as Oikawa mentions it, it’s fresh in his mind. The frightened yelping of the puppies, and the big wet tears that welled in Tobio’s eyes when everyone around him had a puppy in their arms and he had to stand there alone, rejected. It occurs to him that he feels guilty—he wants to believe Kageyama’s story and help him because he knows that what happened all those years ago was wrong. Even though he was only a child himself, and could have done nothing to stop it. Even though it strikes him as obvious that Oikawa is the superior leader of the two and he wouldn’t see Kageyama reinstated. But these facts won’t resurrect Kageyama’s sabotaged future, or give him his family back. “At the time I thought it was so funny,” Oikawa murmurs, gazing vacantly past Iwa’s shoulder. The intonation of this recollection adds, implicitly, _but it really wasn’t._ He snivels, then shakes himself back into focus. “I’ve never seen a dragon that wasn’t dead.”

“Me either,” Iwaizumi realizes. 

“What does he expect _me_ to do about it, exactly?”

“You’re the future leader of Japan.”

Oikawa rolls his eyes, chin on his fist. “All right, touché. But it’s not as if there’s a precedent for me to follow. And I heard a rumor from Kamakura that Otosan is feeling better everyday.”

“You sound disappointed that your father’s health is improving,” Iwaizumi says, feeling the knowing smile on his lips. Oikawa sticks his tongue out.

“In twenty-one years on this earth I’ve spent a total of about twenty-four hours with my father, I’m sorry I don’t seem more broken up about his passing.”

“You’re too young to run a country, anyway,” Iwaizumi says flatly, and Oikawa looks offended for a moment before he grins.

“You’re right. I’m too busy being young and virile.”

“Disgusting,” Iwaizumi grunts, as Oikawa starts crawling toward him.

“You don’t really think so.” 

Iwaizumi shoves his palm in Oikawa’s face and Oikawa makes a noise like some kind of wounded animal. “Dumbass.”

“You’re too romantic, Iwachan,” Oikawa says into his hand, then pushes his arm away. A moment later he manages a successful tackle, pushing Iwaizumi back onto the bed, an arm on either side of his head—it’s hard to admit even to himself that this makes Iwaizumi’s pulse quicken. Oikawa’s yukata hangs down and the plane of his chest dips down between the folds. His face, the sculpting of his neck, it’s unbearable. Iwaizumi wonders if it’s just some source monitoring error, him mistaking his personal fondness for the instinct that tells him people will follow Oikawa, that he glows with some kind of historic aura, that he has a face they’ll paint and a mind they’ll write about hundreds of years from now. But he can’t shake it. 

Oikawa sighs thoughtfully. “Do you think Tobio has a crush on Chibi-chan?” This launches Iwaizumi from his reflection.

“Where’d you get that from?”

“From seeing them together!”

“For what, five minutes.”

Oikawa leans down, their noses almost touching. “If you can perfectly read when Tobio is lying, I can perfectly read when he likes a boy.”

“You don’t even know that he—”

“I’ve known that Tobio likes boys since he was six years old,” Oikawa groans, as though the debate over Kageyama’s preferences had preemptively bored him. He flops off and collapses at Iwaizumi’s side, head instantly lolling to his shoulder. “Plus, he’s eighteen now, which is about when…” Oikawa doesn’t need to finish this sentence and he knows that, knows Iwaizumi finishes it mentally: _when you and I figured it out._  

“Do you think he knows?”

“Pfft, of course not.” While Oikawa talks, Iwaizumi leans over and blows out the lamp, throwing them into darkness. “But Chibi-chan seems like the type to force a realization, eventually.”

They lie there quietly for a long moment, sinking into the dark. Iwaizumi has a thought, and grins, wondering if Oikawa can see it. “If you’re so confident about Kageyama and Hinata, why did you ask my opinion? Shittykawa.” 

Oikawa scoffs as Iwaizumi shifts over him, their faces darkened blurs. “I hate you,” he mumbles, and then again with even less conviction, “I do hate you.”

“No you don’t,” Iwaizumi whispers, leaning down, as the air grows thick and hot between them.

* * *

“You’re sure you haven’t heard of it?”

The old woman stares at Hinata.

“Nekoma? It’s in the mountains somewhere near here, I heard, um…”

She keeps staring. One of the pigs in the pen behind her squeals loud enough that Hinata jumps. He waits there for another minute while the woman chews on something (nothing?) and then… spits on the ground in front of him. Great.

“Bye, lady,” he cries, his horror overruled by frustration as he continues marching down the country road, away from the silent woman and her farm. He started the day with _Nekoma? I think it’s a little further north than here_ , from a shopkeeper, and responses from strangers dwindled in their helpfulness as the day went by, until he passed this lady sitting by the side of the path who refused to respond at all. With that farm behind him, he’s through his sixth village in three days. He moves the shorter distances in and around the villages on foot, with Kinboshi trailing him from the outskirts, then they fly for longer distances. Right now she’s waiting for him in a patch of forest starting up after the quiet lady’s fields end—he breaks into a jog on his way to meet her, feeling impatient for some company and reassurance. 

It’s a blessing it’s summer and the nights are warm even up north, or he doesn’t know how he would survive out here. He hasn’t had a hot meal since that breakfast the day he left. He can ignore the aching of his feet and the dryness of his throat and the constant exhaustion, but the hunger is rough—almost rough enough to distract from the psychic ache at the back of his head, reminding him, _annoyingly_ , that he left part of his soul back in Kyoto. But the pain is bearable. He doesn’t have any regrets. 

“Kinchan.” She is napping in a sunny spot on the forest floor, and lifts her head to make a friendly noise in greeting. “We need to find somewhere to camp tonight.” His saddle sits propped up against a tree and he starts rummaging through his things. For the umpteenth time he lights on Hitoka’s letter, growing increasingly crumpled and dirty at the bottom of his bag, and shoves it aside along with his sense of guilt about not delivering it. It’s not as if he won’t go back to Kyoto. Eventually. Someday. “Did you hunt today? There isn’t much salted fish left.” 

He looks up and she’s making the pouty eyes at him, so he groans and tosses her a treat. Then he takes one for himself (he’s not picky) and sinks down against the tree, sucking and chewing on the jerky to make it last as long as possible. Definitely no regrets.

“You know, with the way people act all stupid when I ask about it, you’d think Nekoma was some big secret.” Kinboshi has already finished her food and watches him enviously as he savors bites in between sentences. “What’s the point of that? If they’re devoted to protecting dragons, why don’t they want people to _know_ about them?” He sighs around his last shred of jerky. “But we’re going to find them, don’t worry. I’m going to find someone who will really listen to me. It’s about time.” Kinboshi stares as he swallows the final bite and examines his empty hands, carefully licking even the tiniest traces of salt from his fingers. He feels bad that she’s still hungry, but telling her again and again to hunt during the day does nothing when she refuses to stray too far from wherever he is. He reaches out and rubs her nose in sympathy, and her eyes fall closed with a purr. In spite of everything, he smiles.

A twig snaps somewhere in the trees across the clearing and Kinboshi’s eyes fly open.

Every one of her muscles tenses and he suspends mid-movement, his hand frozen against her, his breathing stalled. Another twig snaps. 

He should grab his knife from his bag. Kinboshi moves slowly, backing away from him and turning to stare at the shadowy hole between the trees where the noises originated. He should, he really… with shaking hands he manages to pull the rucksack to his side, eyes never leaving the shadows. _Snap. Snap._ There’s definitely something out there. _This is it_ , he realizes. _I’m going to die here, having done nothing. What an idiot._

“Are you a spirit?” he calls, because something about it being nearly nightfall in the forest makes him think that’s the most likely scenario. “Just so you know, I think… my soul would probably… not taste very good.” Kinchan glances at him skeptically and he shrugs to say, _It’s not like you can do better!_ He finally finds his knife and draws it out slowly, climbing to his feet.

“I’m not a spirit.”

A figure steps out from the trees, not terribly tall but cloaked in dark red, a hood casting its face into shadow. Spirit or no, Hinata almost screams from the effect of the entrance. 

“What are you!”

Instead of answering, the figure drops its hood, and there is… a man not much older than Hinata, with strange blond streaks in his dark hair, and tired cat eyes. More out of surprise than anything, Hinata lowers his knife. Just a person. It’s… just a person. He doesn’t even have a sword.

“ _Who_ are you?”

The man looks at him for a long moment, unblinking, then says simply (Hinata has never heard anyone introduce themselves that simply, even on Karasuno), “Kenma.” He flaps his arms a little in confusion—is everyone around here bad at communicating? 

“Kenma _who_?”

“Kozume Kenma.”

“Oh,” says Hinata, even though his question hasn’t really been answered. “But… where…”

Kenma ignores him, stepping into the clearing, his eyes falling to Kinboshi: Hinata hadn’t even noticed her relax at the sight of this stranger. Which is bizarre, since shouldn’t she be _alarmed_ , or— “Your dragon seems hungry,” Kenma observes. Everything he says sounds kind of flat, like he doesn’t want to bother with intonation. Hinata squints as Kenma and Kinboshi regard each other calmly. Something is weird about this.

“You’re not scared of her?”

Kenma glances up at him. He’s Kageyama’s opposite—totally inscrutable to Hinata’s eye. “No.”

He swallows as Kenma turns his attention back to Kinchan, crouching to get a better look at her. “She’s… used to hunting at sea,” he explains, watching Kenma watch Kinboshi. “We’re so inland here she can’t do that, and she’s been trying to hunt in the woods, but she doesn’t quite know how yet.” 

There’s another long silence as Kenma concludes his examination of Kinboshi and stands again—though not quite, Hinata notices a pervasive slump to his shoulders. “Are you okay? Do you feel okay?” he asks. He doesn’t think much about inquiring after this stranger’s welfare, but from the way Kenma stares at him afterwards, maybe it was an odd thing to say, and he blushes a little.

“I’m fine.” Phew. All right. “There’s a few large lakes with fish population in the foothills of the mountains near here. You can take your dragon there to eat.”

Hinata gapes at him, then bursts out grinning. “Oh, thank you, Kenma-san!” Kinboshi purrs happily in Kenma’s direction; between both their attentions, Kenma starts to look a little flustered, half-turning away. 

“Just Kenma is fine.”

“Thank you, Kenma,” Hinata sings, bounding closer to him—he forgets he’s still holding his knife and, when Kenma flinches at the sight of the blade, tosses it back to his stuff. “Hey, if you know about the mountains and you’re okay with dragons—have you heard of Nekoma?”

Kenma doesn’t even speak this time, but nods slowly. 

“Yeah? How do you get there?”

After a pause, Kenma replies, “They don’t like visitors.”

This doesn’t deflate Hinata for a second. “Yeah, but I’m on a diplomatic mission, it’s really important. They’ll definitely want to hear what I have to say.” Unlike _some_ people. 

While he waits for an answer, Hinata wonders if Kenma is someone who can really think about everything he’s going to say before he says it. He finds that difficult to imagine. Finally Kenma replies, “Okay… do you know which way is north?”

“Kinchan does! She’s got a perfect sense of direction because of her nature magic,” he says, in a bit of a brag. He briefly considers that maybe he shouldn’t be telling all this to some random person he met in the woods, but Kenma seems cool, and he trusts his people instincts. 

“It’s about fifteen minutes northeast when you fly, on a mountainside.”

“A mountainside?” he echoes excitedly, not really sure how people could live there, but looking forward to finding out.

“Yeah.”

“Thank you, Kenma!” Kenma ducks his head in embarrassment but Hinata barely notices, hopping back over to his saddle. “Fifteen minutes isn’t far at all, I bet I can make it there tonight, before the sun even sets.” He starts stuffing away his belongings and lifts the saddle with difficulty, such a big heavy thing, he would always let Kageyama put the saddles on because he couldn’t handle the weight on his own—he grits his teeth and drags it, turns back to Kinboshi, who makes a strange wailing noise…

The clearing is empty but for the two of them. Kenma is gone.

“Oh.”

Kinboshi blinks up at him, a little sad. He gives her a smile to prove he doesn’t mind.

“Let’s get going!”

* * *

The sun sinks into the distant horizon; somewhere out there, beyond the forests and fields and small rural towns within sight, is the rest of the world, but the earthen terraces of the Nekoma shrine are distant from that reality.

“You think staring is going to make him come back any faster?”

Kuroo flinches, his foot scraping the edge of the overhang. A couple of pebbles fall, plummeting hundreds of feet down the mountain.

“You snuck up on me, Yaku-san.”

 The shorter man is standing behind him, arms over his chest; he gives Kuroo a very innocent smile and says, conversationally, “You weren’t paying attention.” He doesn’t care to argue with this point.

“Kenma knows mealtimes are set. You don’t eat if you’re not here.” Turning back to the ledge, Kuroo scans the landscape below them again for a sign of their returning member, but no such luck. 

“He does know that,” Yaku agrees, with a glance at the path back to the complex. Lev’s voice might actually be audible, even this far from the meal being shared on the main pavilion. The way home will grow dark soon, but Kuroo has navigated it at night a hundred times, he doesn’t mind venturing back blind. “ _You_ also know that.” Almost on cue, Kuroo’s stomach growls. Yaku is smiling that innocent smile.

Kuroo is about to (grudgingly) own up to his hypocrisy when he catches a blip of movement in the foothills, and sighs in relief. “Ah. Here we go.” A dot shoots toward them—Kenma’s dragon is especially small and thin, but his wingspan impresses as he approaches the ledge and grows larger, totally black but for the webbing of his wings and his underbelly, which are pale yellow, almost a light blond. He doesn’t make a sound (Kuroo has always found this eerie in dragons) as he lands about ten feet down the overhang from Kuroo and Yaku, and Kenma slides off his back, sighing at the sight of his welcoming party.

Kuroo has spent the past fifteen minutes contemplating what he’ll say in reprimand when Kenma finally returns, but finally all he gets out is a rather lame, “You’re late!”

“Okay.” Kenma skirts by them with unusual speed, headed back to the shrine and mostly ignoring Kuroo and Yaku, much to Kuroo’s dismay.

“You’re not even going to untack Nao?” 

“He likes to nap here.” It’s true, the dragon has already collapsed and is snoozing right where he landed. “I’ll untack later.”

Kuroo surges after Kenma up the path, with Yaku following suit, slowed by the length of his legs. “You nearly missed dinner. I would have gone to look for you if you weren’t back by nightfall.”

“Sorry.” 

And then Kuroo’s nose collides with the back of Kenma’s head, and he yelps, rubbing at the shot of pain. 

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Kenma murmurs, turning to blink up at him. “We need to prepare for a guest.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> because i want to work on other projects at the same time, i'm moving gsas to monthly updates from now on! just a heads up.


	8. silence and noise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (i know that we can win / i know that greatness lies in you / but remember from here on in / history has its eyes on you)

It’s strange how much Kageyama finds he remembers of imperial life—how easily he dusts off his early childhood memories, of tea and bathing and dressing ceremonies, the taste of the foods, snippets of conversations about poetry and scandal. 

But aside from occasionally witnessing these familiarities when he ventures beyond his quarters, he passes the days after Hinata’s departure in solitude. Iwaizumi-san had told him, the morning after their talk, _stay as long as you like._ That’s a relief: he can’t well return to Karasuno without Hinata, and for all his mental gymnastics and the increasingly irritating sense that he’s forgotten something important, he can’t divine where his soutai has fled. And even if he did—what is there to say? Their bond is bruised but can’t be broken. It needs repair, with words he doesn’t have, or deeds he can’t perform. Not unlike the other task they’ve set for themselves, this seems impossible.

They let him keep the guest suite he and Hinata had shared. The first day he tries sitting in the courtyard, but the place stinks of incompletion. After a while he can’t stand it.

So he takes to the streets of Kyoto. He walks from alley to alley, meandering, hands shoved into his obi or knotted behind his back. This is better, but imperfect. The city bustles, noisy and dirty, full of movement, ripe with color, but in his mind it’s just as quiet as the courtyard. He can’t shake it because it’s inside him, a cold hollow in his chest. 

Soon it’s been a week, then another, and he’s losing sleep. His body aches through the night. It’s the same as when he felt Hinata dying, the toxic dosage of spiritual and emotional pain, and he begins to doubt what Nishinoya had once told him, that losing a soutai would hurt but not kill him. Maybe it’s the strength of their connection, but he doesn’t know how anyone could live their life missing someone so profoundly. It makes him sick. _What are you so afraid of?_ Hinata had asked him once, though the answer seemed obvious. _I won’t go anywhere,_ he’d promised _._

If Kageyama is a coward, and he is, then Hinata is a liar. And he is.

Kageyama walks until his feet scrape his sandals and start to bleed. He stops at the stalls in market streets; he holds the tooth of a dragon in his hand and it feels burning hot to the touch—he drops it roughly, drawing a glare from the vendor. On his way out he examines the skin of his palm. There are no marks, no evidence of a wound.

After this incident, which reminds him that it’s not only the distance to Hinata making him hurt, he decides it’s time to rejoin Haizora.

“You’re leaving right away?”

He continues shoving his belongings into a canvas rucksack, not looking at Iwaizumi. The man who is arguably his only friend left in this place stands by the open door to Kageyama’s room, arms folded over his chest in that way that makes him seem perpetually down-to-earth. The few conversations he’s had in his time alone here—two weeks now, of vicious silence—have been with Iwaizumi. He’ll miss having such a calm, reasonable person to interact with. 

“There’s no reason for me to stay.” He shoves one of the borrowed kimonos to the bottom of his bag. They won’t miss it, and winter isn’t far off, so he could use the extra layers.

“And you’re going…?”

“To find my dragon. In the hills beyond the city.”

Iwaizumi doesn’t speak for a minute and Kageyama has trouble not feeling nervous at that. He _does_ want this man’s good opinion. The floorboard creaks and suddenly Iwaizumi is standing over him and his half-packed luggage, and Kageyama stutters.

“Stay one more night.”

Kageyama opens his mouth to reply, but no words come out. Seeing this, Iwaizumi shifts his weight and sighs.

“I want you to talk with Oikawa.”

Kageyama shuddered, any awe he felt clobbered by fear and anger and shame. “No, I’m not an idiot, I won’t—”

“Do it for me, then,” says Iwaizumi sharply. It is beyond the scope of Kageyama’s observational powers to see that Iwaizumi knows what he’s doing, making this plea personal. And his deep-seated integrity loathes that he has to manipulate Kageyama’s admiration for him like this—but this boy’s cooperation is imperative. “I’ve spoken to Oikawa on your behalf all I can. He wants to hear you, now.”

Kageyama blinks up at him. Iwaizumi steps away, back toward the door, and Kageyama shakes his head to pull himself out of the trance. “One more night…”

“Tonight you’ll eat with us. We can talk then.”

And then Iwaizumi is gone. Kageyama glares at the hole he left and kicks aside his open bag.

The chamber where Oikawa has his meals is less gaudy than Kageyama had expected.

But it’s still gaudy. Silk tapestries. Armfuls of fresh-cut flowers. Glinting silver candlesticks and painted porcelain dishes. When he gets there, Oikawa and Iwaizumi are already seated and the food has been served. Iwaizumi looks much the same as earlier, but Oikawa is in a lavender patterned yukata, also silk. Everything silk. Everything money and power. Kageyama stands before their table trying not to look too disgusted with the entire affair.

“Tobio-chan,” says Oikawa with forced brightness, not looking up from his meal. “Please sit.”

Kageyama obeys, slowly, putting out a spark of fear that the cushion laid out across from them is booby-trapped. Oikawa still doesn’t look up; his hands move neatly over the dishes and trays of steaming food, his reach often long but always elegant, plucking up bites with his chopsticks, whereas Kageyama would hardly even know Iwaizumi was eating if not for the slow churn of his jawline as he chews. He gives Kageyama a nod, reassuring.

It’s quiet, and Kageyama decides it is probably safe to begin eating, so he does. He should start before his stomach starts growling at the smells, anyway.

“I owe you an apology, Tobio.” 

Kageyama drops a rice ball and it hits the table with a splat. Oikawa is giving him a withering look and he thinks he can see the tiniest smile on Iwaizumi’s lips. Kageyama retrieves the rice ball and maneuvers into his mouth in one bite, sheepish, as Oikawa continues.

“That little performance when you first arrived was beneath me.” Oikawa lays down his chopsticks and pops the cork out of a carafe. “I lost my cool. It was behavior… not befitting a future ruler.” Tossing Kageyama a smile that makes his skin crawl, Oikawa pours clear, steaming liquid into three cups. Sake. “I hope you can forgive me. We _are_ family, after all.” _Distantly_ , Kageyama wants to stipulate. Third cousins at best. He can see very little of himself in Oikawa, but of course, he doesn’t really know how to look.

He has chewed the rice ball enough to swallow and subsequently, to speak. “Fine. Forgiven.”

“Good,” says Oikawa happily, passing a cup of sake to Iwaizumi and then to Kageyama. “Iwa-chan has been telling me what you intend to do with your friend Chibi-chan, and I wanted to ask you something myself. Face-to-face. So I can hear you answer with my own two ears.” 

Oikawa’s eyes fall closed as he lifts his drink to his nose and exhales, blowing the steam off the top. Kageyama doesn’t dare try his own drink with the way his stomach keeps flipping. The pensive command in the way Oikawa parses his words glues Kageyama in place, like he’s waiting for a tiger to pounce; he couldn’t flinch if he wanted to. Iwaizumi’s entire presence seems forgettable in the hungry dominance of Oikawa’s focus. Oikawa opens his eyes and gazes across the table at Kageyama, all hints of humor drained from his face.

“Do you want to be the shogun, Tobio?”

Iwaizumi’s invisibility wanes just in time for him to stir uncomfortably at the corner of Kageyama’s vision. The flipping in Kageyama’s stomach has stilled: he’s already answered this question, for Iwaizumi, but more importantly for himself. 

“No.”

Oikawa blinks. He does it again, and some of his intensity goes with it. “Are you lying?”

“I’m not.”

Oikawa, half-smiling, gives a little shake of his head. “And you don’t want it—because? Why is it that you don’t want to be the leader of your country, when you could?”

“I don’t know,” Kageyama hears himself say. A hint of panic has snuck into his voice. Oikawa asks this as if he’s wrong, as if he _should_ want it, as if he is mad for thinking otherwise—and indeed he can remember thinking months ago, before the Arashi, before soutai and Hinata, before Haizora came into his life, how he would do anything to retrieve a little of the prestige owed him by virtue of his blood and his father’s sword. He had wanted to come here, to Kyoto, to this palace. He had wanted to be named a samurai, and wear it as a badge of honor. Hinata had asked him, that day by the lake, when he first met Haizora—a new future for your people, or personal glory? And he’d picked glory, he’d thought he would choose it every time.

Now when he checks inside himself that desire is gone.

_Where did it go? Where’s my ambition?_ he thinks, suddenly frightened to have lost a piece of himself and not noticed it missing.

“You don’t know?” Oikawa glances at Iwaizumi and their brows furrow in tandem. Oikawa turns back to him. “Supposing I believe this—what is it that you _want?_ ”

“The dragons,” Kageyama mutters, wincing, chin dropping to his chest.

“Yes, you have them, no more war! I know. I’m asking what you want. Deep down inside your chest.” Kageyama glances up just long enough to note that Oikawa’s expression… isn’t unsympathetic. “You’ve always had passion. Single-minded, stupid passion, but still passion. So what’s the single thing that drives you, now?”

He can’t even get out the word _dragons_ a second time, it is such a pale imitation of the truth. The ache that normally comes when he sleeps starts up now, making him double over the table and grit his teeth, hands twisting in his own hair. It isn’t that he doesn’t love Haizora or fear what would happen should the dragons be lost, only that he can’t muster up the massive well of compassion required to extend his concern for one creature to every single dragon in Japan. He has always been single-minded, like Oikawa said. He cares about the cause, but it’s only an extension of what really matters. What has shifted his priorities. The single thing, that’s not a thing at all, but a person. His passion.

Epiphany kicks him in the stomach; he chokes back a wash of tears and scrambles to his feet, then rushes out of the dining room. 

Behind him Iwaizumi says urgently, “Kageyama!” His voice is followed by Oikawa’s, lower and calmer, “No, I’ll go.”

Kageyama surges into the courtyard at the heart of Oikawa’s quarters—considerably larger and grander than the one in his own, but that’s expected—and he can feel the rush of a body right on his heels, so he’s not surprised to turn around to find his old senpai staring him down. Kageyama lifts an arm to shield the wetness of his face.

“Oh, it’s more shameful to be embarrassed than it is to cry, Tobio,” Oikawa snaps. Kageyama wipes his face and lowers his arm. Oikawa adds, a little softer, turning away from him, “Especially when it comes to this topic.”

 Kageyama falls onto a garden bench. He grips the edge of the wooden seat and splinters catch the delicate cushions of his palms. “It’s…” He can’t finish the answer to Oikawa’s question, though it’s nothing more than a name. There is a long pause and Oikawa watches him. A small fountain babbles noisily in the corner of the courtyard. Oikawa takes a few meandering steps, his yukata rustling.

“So Chibi-chan loves dragons, and you love Chibi-chan?”

Kageyama inhales sharply. Shameful or not, he keeps his head down. _I love Hinata._ He says it to himself, wondering if it might sound any less strange. _I hated Hinata._ With the suggestion comes a flood of memories: fighting him in the stableyard, stumbling on him in the mountain pass, the sight of him shrinking as Kageyama plummeted down the side of a cliff in the middle of the Arashi’s storm. Watching him give himself to death and crawl back from the edge, and the sheer relief and joy that moment he’d opened his eyes again. Kageyama told a joke, and Hinata had laughed, at a time when laughter seemed impossible. 

He had always been so scrappy—he would fight hard when it meant nothing or everything—he would never give up or look down—he would smile through sadness, to alleviate his pain—Kageyama had once hated these things about him. Now he misses them, acutely. He can only remember hating Hinata as a performance put on by some other self, that boy stuck in the mud of the past, obsessed with power, aching to grow. And he had done it. Grown.

They are soutai, of course, but that’s a bond of the spirit—love is a bond of the heart. Perhaps what he feels is some confused echo of their soutai but he doesn’t think so. Becoming soutai took a few hours, a gallon of blood, and a fragment of his soul. Falling in love took nothing—it gave—it puddled in the dried-up corners of his heart, an oasis amidst misfortune.

_I love Hinata._

He raises his head and Oikawa looks down on him, maybe pitying. It’s dark, lamps swathe the yard in yellow light.

“Oikawa-san,” he murmurs. His voice comes out roughened by tears that have mostly subsided, now that he’s struggled through the agony of acceptance. “If… Iwaizumi-san left you, what would you do?”

“We are not talking about me.” Oikawa lifts his nose into the air. “What did you do to offend Chibi-lover? You insulted his love of dragons, didn’t you?” Kageyama nods slowly. “Because you failed to discuss your goals with me?” He nods again. Oikawa makes a tiny _hmph_ and turns, tilting his head toward the moon. Kageyama thinks of Haizora and longs for his friend’s eyes, even the smallest of consolation prizes. “Not to be too on-the-nose about it, Tobio, but if you expect to hold someone’s trust you have to listen to them.” Oikawa’s head tilts, and he glances back at Kageyama. “If you love Chibi-chan, you have to hear what he has to say, and why it’s important.”

Kageyama explains quietly, “He was being unreasonable.”

“And you discussed it beforehand, with you neatly detailing _why_ his demands were unreasonable, and he still refused?” The presumption in Oikawa’s tone suggests he speaks the opposite of what he knows. Kageyama only scowls at the stones in the garden path. “Ah, see, Tobio,” Oikawa hums. “Chibi-chan trusted you enough to let you steer, for a moment. And you betrayed him.”

Kageyama’s jaw tenses and he stands when he says, “So I fucked up! Fine!”

“Calm down,” Oikawa snorts, and steps back to evaluate him with infuriating coolness. “You’re being defeatist. If… Hinata is what drives you, then his passion is yours too.”

Kageyama paces the length of the garden. “Yes, that’s why I keep—talking about dragons, but he’s the one who’s good at—giving speeches and shit.” He wheels around to find Oikawa squinting at him through the dim light.

“Well.” With a sigh, Oikawa busies himself examining the sleeve of his yukata. “If you’re not a fool—so it’s hard to say, really—you know that we anticipate another invasion from the Mongols within the next year.” The segue surprises Kageyama enough that he eases out of his distress. “I can’t fight a war with them while I’m fighting a war with a bunch of…” Oikawa sighs pointedly. “Fire-breathing reptiles. I think that may have had something to do with why it went so poorly last time.”

“We can help with that.” In spite of everything Kageyama almost turns to the side and grins, expecting to see Hinata there, grinning back at him, but—he’s an idiot. He has to swallow the disappointment. “Our dragons are allies—powerful ones.” Oikawa perks up at the word _allies._ “They could help defend our shores. They… I mean. I’ve seen it before. I’ve seen them defend.”

A tiny smile finds the corner of Oikawa’s mouth. “But I suppose you can’t do that without Chibi-chan.”

“No, I…”

“So go find him!” declares Oikawa with a broad wave. “You know what he’s chasing now. _Find him._ ” Oikawa starts back for the dining room, still flapping his arm. “Tell him the shogunate will consider a partnership. Try a little of the Kageyama charm, whatever that is. Or,” his voice lapses into a sneer, “Get on your knees, if you have to.” 

Kageyama watches his yukata vanish around a corner, then stumbles a step to the side. He throws back his head and drinks in the moon overhead. _I love Hinata_. But he refused to listen, so—so what did Hinata do?

So… Hinata went to find someone who would.

* * *

 

“And this one?”

“Talon clipper and file.”

“And this one?”

“For pulling off loose scales.”

“And what does this do?”

“I don’t know.”

Hinata puts his chin in his hands and breaks into the biggest grin he can remember grinning. “Kenma-kun, I love it here.”

More understated than Hinata’s beaming, Kenma’s mouth twists into the tiniest smile, but it has the same feeling of radiance about it. He leans over his work, squinting at the stitches: a new saddle for Kinboshi. “Be careful if you want to touch anything. A lot of the equipment is old.” Hinata gives the supply room another once-over—Kenma is right, most of the metals on the wealth of dragon-related equipment have accumulated rust and dirt.

“How long have you all been up here, again?”

“Uh… Four hundred years.”

“That’s so cool,” Hinata whines, and he cranes to try to get a better look at Kenma’s work, but ends up mostly invading Kenma’s personal space. The other boy shifts away, blinking in surprise. Hinata sits back sheepishly. “Sorry. I just wanted to see what you’re doing.”

“I’m securing the flaps to the saddle tree,” says Kenma, his mouth twisting again. Hinata squirms delightedly.

“I have no idea what that means!”

“Making your saddle.”

Hinata bounces his knee; Kenma offered him a stool but he’d rather be pacing. “Thank you for this, again.”

“It’s no problem.” Kenma pulls a thick needle through the leather flap of his near-finished creation. “I make most of the equipment now. And the one you were using wasn’t comfortable for Kinboshi.”

“Yeah,” Hinata mutters, drooping at the guilt that comes with this reminder. Kenma has already explained the difference between this saddle and the one Daichi-san had officially loaned him for the mainland trip. It’s much smaller and lighter, for one—the demands of a horse’s legs going over land and a dragon’s wings flapping in mid-air are different, after all. This seemed obvious once Kenma pointed it out, even showing Hinata the sore spot behind Kinboshi’s wing joint where the saddle had rubbed off a patch of her scales.

But they gave her a balm for that, and a new saddle to correct the problem. And Yaku-san had performed a full physical on her, showing Hinata how to check her heart rate and breathing, and even pointing out the tiny glands at the back of her throat which produced the nitroglycerin for breathing fire. And _then_ Kuroo-san, in spite of seeming scary, showed them to one of the empty stalls in their stables, with a fish trough for all her meals.

So Hinata likes it here. He really does. 

It’s—it’s just _cool_ , the exact sort of place he would have made up in his head if he wanted to live somewhere with Kinboshi, only his version might have fewer sheer vertical drops. Nekoma is made up of buildings dotting the edges of cliffs, connected by thin rope bridges; there’s a view of the fertile valley below almost every time you step outside. Apparently a shrine sits at the center of the maze-like complex, but Hinata has yet to be admitted there. “This place was built by dragons and humans, together,” Kenma had told him when he first arrived. “The dragons blasted the rocks, and the people built a settlement they could both use.” 

That’s the thing that cinches it, about Nekoma: it’s completely dragon-friendly. There are landing spots and feeding stations and waste disposal areas. Someone very bright invented a fireproofing serum using discarded scales, so the buildings are flame-retardant. Right now as Hinata sits in the equipment room with Kenma, he knows Kinboshi is playing with other dragons in a huge yard, specifically set aside for dragon socializing. They use dragons to speed planting and harvesting, and to bring up crops from the fields at the foot of the mountains. The whole operation sustains itself, and each year they bring up a crop of orphans from nearby villages to care for, as well as accepting people like Hinata who’ve had transformative experiences with dragons.

“I love it here,” Hinata groans again, this time throwing his head back. Woe is him. “I don’t want to leave.” The past three weeks have been so _great_. You’d barely even know that he and Kinboshi were missing bits of their souls!

He’s noticed that Kenma often pauses a long time before he speaks, if he even speaks at all. He’s not always very talkative, but he’s still nice to be around. It’s weird getting used to not arguing with someone. “You don’t have to,” he says after one of his extended pauses, not looking up from his work.

“I _do_ , though. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s great here holed up in dragon paradise.” He sighs and finally pops to his feet, going to look out the window. “It’s just that it should be like this everywhere, you know.” Distantly he can see the valley unfolding below, a sliver of the road that had brought him here from Kyoto peeking through the trees. “I have to go back eventually. But first I need to talk to Kuroo-san.” He spins around to address Kenma directly. “Do you know when I can see him? He’s the leader, right?”

Kenma appears to be finishing up his work on the saddle and stands, still not meeting Hinata’s eye. “We’re not very formal about that sort of thing, but I guess so.”

“Is he busy, though? Or can you talk to him for me?”

“Let’s go fit Kinboshi’s new saddle,” Kenma says, pulling it off his workstation.

If Hinata were inclined to paranoia, he might think Kenma had dodged his question. After all, this isn’t the first time he’s mentioned it, not even the second or third, and he can’t seem to remember ever getting a straight answer. He considers this as he follows his new companion out into the alleys of the Nekoma complex, crossing a bridge and then another. Ultimately he has to dismiss the idea that Kenma has ignored him—Kenma is his _friend_. That much seems clear, even if they’ve only known each other a few weeks. He wouldn’t turn his back on Hinata, because Hinata doesn’t need any more people like that in his life.

Kinboshi has finished her play and suns on a rock in the dragon yard, a rocky valley snugged between two small peaks. She perks up when she senses Hinata coming and he gives her a whistle in greeting.

There are other dragons napping around the yard too—Kuroo-san’s hulking black mount, Iyami, lies on his back with his feet in the air, snoring lightly. He’s the biggest riding dragon Hinata has seen, shaped like a Watatsumi but all black, and Hinata’s dying to see Kuroo fly him. Yaku-san’s Kenta, a small blonde dragon, lies near Iyami with his eyes half-closed, exhausted but roused from slumber by the bigger dragon’s snores. And there are others he hasn’t met (there are _so many_ ), a very round black-and-white dragon who keeps licking his paws, a dark brown excitable one with weird spikes on the top of his head, a muscular, striped one gnawing on a bit of rope.  

Then there is Lev—a beanpole parading as a human—tossing sticks for his dragon, Hachiman, better known as Hachi. (When Hinata had asked why his girl dragon had the name of a male god, Lev replied that he didn’t know or care, Hachiman was the coolest god, and his dragon deserved the coolest name.) “Kenma! Hinata!” Lev waves the branch their way and Hachi tries to snatch it from his hands. If Iyami is the biggest riding dragon Hinata has seen, Hachi is probably the _longest_ , but she’s skinny too, just like Lev. When he rides her, his legs dangle off the sides in her stirrups, yet somehow they’re lightning quick together. 

“Hey, Lev!” Hinata bounds up onto the rock with Kinboshi, who’s purring at him. “Once Kinchan gets her new saddle on, we’re racing again!”

“You’re on,” replies Lev happily; he launches the branch as far as his eel arm will take it, far enough that it plummets off the ledge at the far end of the yard. Hachi squeals and plunges off the edge to chase her toy. 

Kenma nudges Kinboshi to stand and starts strapping on her new accessory, with Hinata and Lev looking on in marked interest. The dragon’s tail twitches above their heads.

“Say, Hinata,” comes Lev’s voice, in its usual cheery shine, “Does Kinboshi have a soutai?”

Hinata stiffens, and he knows neither Lev nor Kenma is stupid enough to miss it. “Why do you…” Hard as he tries, he sounds a lot more _sweat_ than _no sweat._

Lev replies without him having to finish his question. “I just know that she’s a Sun Dragon, and a Sun Dragon usually has a Moon Dragon to go with her. Plus, she seems sort of—” He reaches forward to give Kinboshi a sympathetic pat on the nose. “—listless.”

_Listless?_ Hinata urgently climbs around so he can look into Kinboshi’s great orange eyes. He hadn’t noticed any difference in himself (aside from the usual difficulty sleeping, and the stomach aches, and the terrible urge to weep at sundown, all very minor things in his stubborn estimation) but Kinboshi, he had been so distracted by what Nekoma had to offer… _But this is dragon paradise._ And yet he looks into that face he loves so much and he understands exactly what Lev means. It’s not the face of a happy creature. “Kinchan,” he murmurs, stroking her whiskers. He’s an idiot for not noticing, but he and Kinboshi are too alike. She had hid this sadness from him and from herself. 

Kenma’s head appears above Kinboshi’s, his brow furrowed. “Where is her soutai?”

Hinata swallows and concentrates on Kinboshi’s sad eyes. “He’s back in Kyoto.”

“It’s not healthy for them to be apart for too long,” Lev says knowingly. Kenma shoots him what might be a dirty look.

“Shouyou, you got Kinboshi to leave her soutai and follow you?” 

Hinata nods. “Is that unusual?”

“It’s not unheard of, but it’s uncommon,” says Kenma. “Bonds between individual humans and dragons can vary based on personality. You really don’t know much about them at all, do you?”

Hinata blanches and pops his arms over his chest. “Not—I came from a place where we used to kill them! Give me a break.”

“Break granted,” sings Lev.

Hachi bursts over the ledge, returning with Lev’s branch clutched between her teeth. Lev gives a whoop and a round of applause as they bounce toward each other. Hinata straightens up and stands across from Kenma, Kinboshi between them. His friend tightens the girth on the new saddle and Hinata strokes Kinboshi’s shoulder absently.

“Kenma-kun, you aren’t trying to keep me from talking to Kuroo-san, are you?”

Kenma gives an extra inch of pull and the girth’s buckle slots into place. He lets go. Hinata’s pulse has quickened and Kinboshi’s head turns to watch him, concerned. Kenma won’t meet his eye—he stands there smoothing his hand over the pommel of the saddle, silent.

“I only need two minutes,” Hinata finally adds, hearing how desperate it is and not caring. “I can convince him, I’m sure of it, and it’s important. If you’d just—trust me!”

Kenma’s eyes flutter closed for a moment. Then he looks up at Hinata. He has strange pupils, not like any Hinata has seen. As though the shrine at the center of this place were a true portal to the gods and Kenma has been touched by that, made a little less human for it. “Shouyou,” he says slowly. “It’s not a good idea.”

Hinata’s heart sinks. “What?”

“You came here seeking something, but Nekoma isn’t what you think it is.” His gaze drops to the saddle again. He runs his palm over the seat with loving gentleness. “You’re very passionate. It’s… good. But Kuro, Nekoma, they won’t help you.”

“What are you talking about?” _No. It can’t be._ Kinboshi flinches—she can sense him getting upset. Kenma takes a step back from the dragon. “We want the same things.”

“That isn’t true,” Kenma replies, speaking softer the more ignited Hinata becomes.

“Yes—dragons— _peace_ —”

Kenma lifts his head. “If you want to be at peace, stay here.” Kenma’s expressions are hard to read, but Hinata thinks there’s a plea in his eyes as he meets Hinata’s burning stare. “You and Kinboshi should settle at Nekoma permanently.”

“I told you, I can’t,” says Hinata through his teeth. Angry as he is with Kageyama—there’s Natsu, and Yachi, and all his friends back at Karasuno. His _home_.

Kenma stares at him, the only sign of distress a slight twitch in the muscle of his jaw. He gives a tiny shake of his head and shrugs, then starts climbing down from Kinboshi’s rock.

“Kenma!”

No response, but Hinata scrambles after him.

“You didn’t answer my question! When can I talk to Kuroo-san?”

“Whenever you want,” Kenma calls over his shoulder, as he shuffles out of the yard. “I won’t stop you anymore.”

After that, Hinata stops giving chase. Kenma vanishes and Lev had run off with his dragon somewhere in the midst of their argument, meaning it’s deadly quiet now. He glances over at Iyami and Kenta, now both very awake and watching him in silence. Their eyes make him feel the gaze of Nekoma itself is on him, and it’s not until he turns back and sees Kinboshi that his heart calms down. Kenma… must not understand what it is he’s trying to do. If he did, there’s no way he’d be so reserved—he truly loves dragons as much as Hinata, and so does everyone else here. And that’s more than enough. 

It _has_ to be enough.

* * *

 

Hinata wakes himself up in the middle of the night, whining in his sleep, drenched in cold sweat. 

He starts into consciousness from a vivid dream, unable to shake the sense of urgency, and he can hear the noises he had been making giving their last pitiful scratches at his throat. They’re whimpers, like a suffering animal, and it takes him a moment to register the stabbing pain in his side as the cause. He sits up clutching at his scar, looking the same as it always does, no blood or anything. Just an old wound. He is alone on his mattress in the simple room lent him when he arrived. Whatever he had been dreaming, he can’t remember it.

As the sweat on his skin dries and the _thump thump_ in his chest slows, he manages to lie back again. The moonlight sneaks in through the open window, and it is cold up here in the mountains, even on a summer night. He shivers and pulls his yukata tighter around himself. It has been ages since his scar hurt like this but he manages to squeeze his eyes tight, to swallow it, to stomp out whatever it means. What it means—probably something. He’s resisting a surge of spiritual sensation, and he doesn’t need a reason for that, the vestiges of resentment toward the part of him gone missing fuel him.

He’d left himself behind, in the form of Kageyama and Haizora—so what? He had something to do. _Has_ something to do. All this talk of wisdom and biding one’s time, from his soutai and now Kenma too. If they would just listen to him, for a moment, if they’d just try a strategy other than cautious restraint, they might see that people aren’t so hard to persuade. Hinata had done it with Kageyama—he had done it with all of Karasuno—he would take on larger and larger opponents until he had converted the world.

He feels himself smiling in the darkness.

He interrupts Kuroo-san’s breakfast the next morning. 

Well, actually, he interrupts everyone’s breakfast, since they all eat together, but he’s most intent on interrupting Kuroo’s breakfast. He arrives at their canteen and the place is swarmed with dark red kimonos, rustling together, the clinks of dishware and chopsticks and sleepy conversation. It takes him a moment to identify the head of messy dark hair amidst the throng, and another moment to trade the last flicker of indecision for bravery.

His voice roars across the crowded room and the noise stops, all at once, like he’s sucked up the sound with his words. “ _Kuroo-san! I need to speak with you!_ ”

Maybe it is something in Hinata’s demeanor that keeps the room quiet even after he has finished shouting. He is an open book to most people, he knows—perhaps they are looking at him, this stranger that Kenma-kun brought into their sanctuary and vouched for, now shouting at their de facto leader over breakfast, and they can tell something is about to happen in a big way. Out the corner of his eye, Hinata spots Kenma sitting a little way down Kuroo’s table, his head down. He’s the only one not staring.

In marked contrast to Hinata’s heaving chest and trembling hands, Kuroo sits back from his meal with a tiny yawn. “Sure. Come up here and talk.”

Hinata blanches. “In front of everyone?”

“If you can say it to me, you can say it to everyone. That’s how it works here.” A smirk tugs at Kuroo’s lips. “Besides, you’re the one that stormed in here. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

Hinata draws a deep breath and shuffles up between two tables, toward the head table where Kuroo and Yaku and the other senior members of Nekoma are seated. They are a relatively young group, for being senior, except for one wrinkly old guy who Hinata has never heard speak, though he’s always smiling off in the corner. Even when Hinata gets closer, Kenma doesn’t look up.

He kneels at the table directly opposite Kuroo, who watches him with that smirk still, and a suspicious interest in his eyes. His leadership is different—from Oikawa’s, and from Daichi and Ukai’s too. Hinata doesn’t know what to do with it, but even if he did, he’d probably end up speaking his mind anyway.

“Thank you for hosting me, but, um—I really came here for another reason. Because I need your help.”

Kuroo raises an eyebrow, then exchanges an unfathomable look with Yaku. “We know that.”

“You _do?_ ” Hinata squeaks, immediately jerking his head to stare at Kenma, not understanding why he would—he _hadn’t_ wanted Kuroo to know, Hinata thought.

“Relax, shrimpy,” Kuroo snorts.“No one ratted you out, you ratted yourself out. You talk about it constantly and we don’t keep secrets.”

Feeling remarkably stupid, Hinata ducks his head for a moment to cover his embarrassment. Of course he’d talked, he always talks, but usually—usually there is someone there to keep him from saying anything irreparably stupid. _But I only need him_ spiritually, he whines to himself. Aside from the soul-warming thing, Kageyama should have no special significance. Except… ah, yes, he really does feel remarkably stupid.

“You can tell me again, though,” Kuroo offers, as though he were doing Hinata a great kindness. “If you’re desperate.”

Hinata continues staring at his lap. He never changed out of the kimono they gave him at the palace, and it occurs to him for the first time how that must look to the people of Nekoma. This stranger in fancy clothes, coming to them, talking of revolution. “I want to end Japan’s war with dragons,” he says. It comes out softer than he had anticipated, almost shy. He tries to sound stronger as he continues, lifting his chin. “I don’t believe it needs to be this way. I convinced my home island to change, and Karasuno, we always fought them—”

“You’re from Karasuno?”

This is not Kuroo’s voice, nor one he has heard since he arrived. Heads turn to the end of the table, where… the old man from before sits, unmoved by the weight of everyone’s eyes on him. He is only looking at Hinata, the same smile as always on his face.

“Uh, yeah—you know Karasuno?” says Hinata unsteadily.

“Of course I know Karasuno. Doesn’t Karasuno know Nekoma? Isn’t that how you ended up here?” Oh. Right. Hinata blushes.

“Before, I know we refused to change—”

The old man laughs. It gives Hinata chills. “It wasn’t that you refused to change,” the man says. “It was that you wouldn’t let us tell you it was time. You people evolve, but at your own pace. And now you expect the rest of the world to follow you.”

“No, I…”

“Kuroo-san,” the old man sighs, closing his eyes. “Finish having this conversation.”

But Hinata isn’t done, far from it. “If we changed, and we wouldn’t before, that shows that—anybody can change!” He turns back to Kuroo eagerly. “We had some of the worst attacks and things are different now, so the mainland—it shouldn’t be hard.” He says this like he doesn’t have a giant hunk of scar tissue in his side, sacrificed in part to change minds.

Kuroo blinks at him. The exhaustion lining his face has grown more pronounced. “Listen, kid…”

“I’m sorry we didn’t listen before.” Hinata sits forward, fierce. He wants to look at Kenma too, but he’s preemptively disappointed at the lack of response. “But that wasn’t me! I’m _different_.”

“That’s the problem,” Kuroo replies flatly.

“I don’t understand!”

“Most people aren’t like you. They aren’t like us.” He gestures around the room, to his friends, his family found. “Nekoma exists as a place for people who are different to keep being that way. It’s a sanctuary, not a castle. We don’t fight in wars.”

“So you don’t care that hundreds of dragons get slaughtered every year?” He feels a shock circling the room, a few voices behind him pipe up in whispers. Kuroo isn’t smiling anymore. 

“Caring is one thing, intervening is another.”

“That’s a coward’s attitude,” Hinata seethes, beginning to boil like he sometimes does—like he did not too long ago, when Kageyama gave him an answer similarly cloaked in fear. Kuroo shifts in his seat, eyes narrowing, and the whispering at Hinata’s back gets louder. “You’re afraid!” He raises his voice and feels it straining his throat. “I bet your people never tried to make a difference—”

“They saw it was impossible...”

“So you holed up here? You just ignore it?” 

His squint now twisted into a glare, Kuroo sits there in an extended pause, at which point Yaku leans into Hinata’s line of vision. “Your passion is admirable, Hinata-kun, but there just aren’t enough of us. It’s unrealistic.”

“Unrealistic,” Hinata echoes, looking between Kuroo and Yaku and Lev and Kenma and their friends, people he’s spent the past three weeks growing to like immensely, scattered throughout the room—Inuoka, noisy Yamamoto, quiet Fukunaga. Their mouths are lines and he realizes, with a burst of effort like heaving open a heavy door, that he is not convincing anyone. He turns back to Kuroo, the anger building to a hard boil in the pit of him. He speaks through his teeth. “You’re not going to help me?” Not once had he considered this possibility, not among so many people _like him_ , not aliens to the world of dragons but its residents. 

If Nekoma isn’t on his side, then who would ever be?

“I’m sorry, shrimpy,” Kuroo says, frowning. And they do look sorry, kind of—but it’s more pity than anything. Hinata hates to think he looks pitiful right now but that must be the truth of it, now that he’s prostrated himself with such excitement and confidence before them and come out empty-handed. _What did you expect?_ demands a voice in his head. _Stupid. Stupid._

He’s furious as he clambers to his feet, furious as he stands over their table with his hands knotted at his sides and his chest heaving. Furious as he declares, “You’re making a mistake. If you want to be on the right side of history, you’ll help me.”

Yaku addresses him earnestly, a sort of consolation prize, “You’re welcome to stay as long—”

“I’m not staying here! I don’t need to hide away up on some mountain.” He is shouting—thoughtlessly, maybe cruelly—at Kenma, he realizes, but he can’t stop himself. His friend stares into his lap, shoulders drooping, the person he had hoped for the most. But Kenma doesn’t look up. “I want to be heard,” Hinata cries, his voice cracking, “and I will be.”

That’s it—the bit of him still fighting snaps and he storms out, bereft of words and the willpower to kick and scratch in a battle he’s already lost. 

* * *

 

The morning was more excitement than they get in a year at Nekoma. 

Kuroo doesn’t like this. He’s tired for the rest of the day. Tired through the scolding he gets from Nekomata about outsiders, tired through Yaku coming by to report that Hinata-kun’s room has been deserted, and that there’s no sign of his Nichitatsu anywhere. 

He’s tired when he’s on his way to supper and catches a glimpse of Kenma huddled at an overlook near his quarters, and he almost doesn’t stop. But only almost—it _is_ Kenma.

His old friend sits with his knees tucked to his chest. The sun sets over the valley below, but Kenma doesn’t seem to be watching the spectacle so much as—staring at it, his gaze vacant. 

Maybe it’s insensitive, but Kuroo says the first thing that pops into his head, when he sees Kenma moping like that, in his specially understated Kenma-esque way. “You only knew him three weeks.” (Kuroo is _tired_.)

Kenma doesn’t turn his head when Kuroo plops down beside him, only lets his eyes flutter closed half-a-second. “Three weeks can be enough.”

“Enough for what?” Kuroo says, a little too quickly. But he supposes it’s not even worth trying to seem laid-back around Kenma. When Kenma doesn’t answer (this signals a rejected topic of conversation, Kuroo knows), he tries, “I’m sorry he didn’t stay longer so you could get to know him better.”

“If Shouyou were the type to stay, I wouldn’t want him to.”

“So you did want him to?”

Yet another question with no reply. Kuroo sighs.

“It’s dinner time. I’m going to walk over. Come if you want.” He gets to his feet again, but Kenma’s voice halts him before he can leave. 

“I’m angry with you.”

The way he says it—there isn’t a shred of anger in that tone, not the way you’d hear it coming from anyone else, but from _Kenma_ … Admittedly, Kuroo’s stomach tightens. It’s difficult to anger Kenma, when there’s so little he cares about. Nao, his own privacy, Nekoma, maybe Kuroo himself. The times he’s been on the receiving end of that anger are few and far between, but enough that his fear comes from experience. 

“Because…”

“I think Shouyou is right.”

_Shit._ “Well, I have to say I didn’t find your input earlier today so persuasive.” Kenma shoots him the subtlest of glares, and he shakes his head. “This from you, Neutrality-san.”

“I have a feeling about it.”

“That’s not what you’re feeling,” Kuroo says, too quickly again, too harshly. _Shit, again._ Kenma has turned away from him and lowered his head. Kuroo struggles with indecision for a moment—he’s bad at verbal apology—then crouches beside his friend again. The sun has nearly retreated behind the horizon. “He didn’t have a plan. You can’t expect us to join a revolution of one… I know you of all people wouldn’t be happy in the middle of that.”

Kenma lifts his head, and says levelly, “If he ever asks me to follow him again, I will.” 

Kuroo counts himself startled by the declaration. It barely sounds like Kenma. “By yourself?”

“With Shouyou.”

“He’ll exhaust you.”

“ _This_ exhausts me.”

Now _that_ sounds like Kenma. Kuroo grins in spite of himself, and straightens up. “When that day comes, maybe Nekoma will follow you. But this day—” He gestures to the setting sun. “—is almost over. Will you come to dinner?”

Kenma shrugs. He rests his chin on his knee. “I’m not hungry.”

“Hmm? So you’re going to be weak for when you and Shrimpy take on the whole of Japan?”

When Kenma glances up at him, his eyes might as well roll into the back of his head. But then, with a lot of sighing, he stretches out his legs, and accepts Kuroo’s arm to help pull himself up. “If Nekoma followed me, it would only be for you to keep an eye on me, wouldn’t it?” Kenma mutters as they head toward the canteen together. “You don’t want me to go anywhere.”

“It’s not that I don’t want you to go,” Kuroo explains, patting his shoulder with a smile. “It’s just that I want you to come back.”

* * *

Hinata had turned nineteen a couple of months back. Right around the time the Mizuchi attacked Karasuno, setting in motion the chain of events that would lead to his nearly fatal wound and permanent bond with Kageyama. 

Birthday celebrations don’t exist in the lexicon of things celebrated on Karasuno, but he’d received a few pats on the head, and an especially warm greeting from Sugawara-san. Invisible change like that means very little to him; the scar is a more tangible symbol of his growing up.

But even when it seems like you’ve earned your adulthood, _bled_ for it, you still have things to learn about life. Big things, that can change you. Perhaps he should have known he’d remained young, in a lot of ways, but when he leaves Nekoma with anger lingering in his throat he feels his childhood waning like it never did on his birthdays. He loses his grasp on the straws of innocence. Kinboshi soars over the hills near Nekoma and he looks down at his empty hands and the flight doesn’t last long.

They land in a rocky valley. There is no one around—not a human voice to hear. He’s alone. He slides off Kinboshi, off the saddle Kenma had made him, working with calm delicacy like Hinata had never seen. He notices for the first time a bit of gold etching along the back of the leather seat, which Kenma must have added without telling him. It is a small pattern: the sun and the stars. He runs his fingers over it and they tremble. So much care in this gesture that he’d kept from Hinata, and yet he couldn’t say a word at the moment it really mattered. 

Hinata stumbles away from the saddle. Kinboshi makes a concerned noise but he knows she is hurting too, as much as him, she feels every pang and throb the same. Hinata drops to his knees. He had taken enough time making his escape that the sun has begun to set, and he hurts all the more for that. He starts to cry. 

See—you can believe in something with every bit of yourself, and you can want others to want it too, but at the end of the day you are not a sun. You are just a boy. 

And worse, that boy has nothing, plenty of friends but no allies, no _partner_. No one on his side. 

So he cries, of course he cries. A kind of powerful, emotional weeping, without filter. The crying consumes his entire body, shaking his shoulders and his chest, his nails digging into the cloth at his knees. Behind him Kinboshi has begun to stir and stomp in distress, and he dismisses the tug at his chest as some attempt on her part to pull him back from this. He falls forward, hands slipping into the rocky dirt. The water drips off his chin and dots the dust beneath him. Sharp pebbles bite into his palms, but he doesn’t care. Caring is useless. Everything—whatever he does is useless.

His sobs ring out and bounce off the hills around him and his suffering is magnified to fitting heights, like the mountains weep too, and he wishes that were true. He wishes anyone would join him in mourning the future but—there is no one, and that’s why he mourns in the first place. _There’s no one._ This echoes in his head over and over, punching him in the gut with each reverberation. _No one. No one._ Kinboshi lets out a scream and he barely hears it over the din of his grieving.

“Hinata…”

That isn’t no one.

No, he knows this voice.

In some corner of his mind he had resolved never to hear it again but, now he has. There isn’t much dignity in this, crying alone on a mountain, and it is difficult to bring oneself back from the edge of anguish in an instant, but he tries. Still sobbing and shaking he scrambles to his feet, turning as he goes, catching his balance just as they lock eyes. 

Kageyama looks the same. Strong jaw, blue eyes, windswept hair. Hinata doesn’t know what he thought would be different. Haizora and Kinboshi are behind him, huddled together, clearly happy to be reunited.

Hinata almost wishes, for their sake, that he and Kageyama’s reunion could be that easy.

Lips parted in worry, Kageyama reaches for his hand and Hinata lurches back, fighting the baser element in his head that screams, _please, yes._

“What are you doing here?”

“I’ve been looking for you for days, and I knew I was close, I—it’s sundown and I felt that…” Kageyama lowers his hand and, in a compromise of sorts, Hinata stops backing away from him. Kageyama lowers his head. His hair falls in his eyes. “I could feel you crying.”

Hinata almost says, _I wasn’t_ , but it is so obvious—he still _is_ , his chest occasionally shaking with aftershocks from the earlier expulsion. He tries in vain to throw up his screen but his head is chaos, there’s no stopping Kageyama from seeing inside him. “I don’t want you here,” he cries, unable to sound anything less than hysterical. He starts to turn his back.

“Please forgive me.”

He has never heard Kageyama sound like that. Struggling to stay proud while also staying honest. The tremor in it, like Hinata’s tears have infected him, and maybe they have, maybe that’s one of those little things. But that tone, it stops Hinata from turning away—it stops his _heart_ , he thinks, for a moment. 

And his mouth opens as he watches Kageyama drop one knee, then the other, to kneel before him. Kageyama’s face, his determined glare, sucking in breaths through his nose. “I should have listened. You were right, about everything. Right to be angry with me.” He dips forward, hands flat on the ground. A bow… “I was scared. I let it distract me.” A bow, all the way with his forehead in the dirt, Hinata—he _remembers,_ and more tears well in his eyes. “From now on, you are everything to me. I care for you… deeply, and I will do anything to earn your forgiveness. I pledge myself to you. I’ll give my life if I have to.” That day by the lake when Kageyama first caught him with Kinboshi and Haizora, and he had begged for Kageyama’s mercy. He’d done just what Kageyama does now—thrown himself into a beggar’s bow, the humblest of the humble. 

Back then he’d have scoffed at the suggestion he would one day be on the receiving end of such a gesture, but it seems they’ve shared growing pains just like they’ve shared everything else.One of Hinata’s sobs comes out like a giggle. 

_I pledge myself to you._ He has always preferred loving to hating and Kageyama, he makes it easy to choose.

“Please… get off of the ground.”

Kageyama’s head lifts, just an inch, hesitantly hopeful. “Am I…” _Forgiven?_ he hears Kageyama think; he can’t focus on such stupid questions.

“Kageyama,” Hinata shrieks, desperate, **I need you** _._ Kageyama clambers up, and the compulsion to tell him everything swarms Hinata—as soon as he remembers his loss he can’t help that the tears come back, a little less violent this time. They fill his eyes and Kageyama’s face becomes a blur, but he feels hands on his arms. “Nekoma, I went to them, they won’t…” He’s pulled into Kageyama’s chest and _shit_ , that’s amazing, he had so determinedly shut out the frustration of being apart and it leaves him all the more breathless at how good this reunion feels, how it soothes him to press his cheek against Kageyama’s chest while he cries. “They aren’t going to help. No one will help.”

“I’ll help,” murmurs Kageyama’s voice by his ear, as they move closer. The comfort of contact fogs his sadness and he’s light-headed, stumbling through his thoughts, eyes slipping closed at the touches. The time of day, the return of their powerfully tactile connection after weeks apart, his heightened emotion, it all bleeds into a helpless daze. He barely registers how they touch and the words that bubble from his lips.

“No one…” He feels lips on his cheek, his temple.

“You have me.” Lips on his forehead, his nose.

“I think it’s impossible, I really think…”

A thumb on his chin, tilting his head back. A kiss under his eye.

“Impossible is nothing to you.”

_I must taste of salt,_ Hinata thinks sleepily, as Kageyama’s lips press his own.

This—this feels _so_ good, refreshing, heady, tender, emotional—that he notes he could do it for hours, in the morning, or before bed at night, maybe after meals; it feels _so_ good, he really doesn’t want it to end, only he does, so they might try it again a little differently, like after he’s wiped his nose; it feels _so_ good that his knees give out after two or three seconds of the experience and Kageyama has to catch him around the waist, to keep him from plummeting to the ground. The sudden tug of gravity at least wakes him up a bit, and he finds he’s blinking up into Kageyama’s very red face. Is that the sunset, turning it such a vibrant shade? But Hinata’s face has gone warm too. Why? Why had—

Kinboshi makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like a laugh. 

Kageyama untangles himself from Hinata enough to turn around and shout, “ _Hey!_ Stop staring! Privacy!” _Privacy?_ He snivels from the tears and his mouth is sort of, tingling. It’s funny and nice. 

Kageyama turns back to him looking stricken, avoiding his eye. “I’m sorry…” He seems so—embarrassed—Kinboshi laughing— _privacy_ —

(He gets there. It just takes a little brainpower.)

Hinata gasps loudly enough that Kageyama _jumps_. 

“Did you mean…”

“I said I’m sorry,” Kageyama snaps, shifting away from him, but Hinata instinctively stays close. So Kageyama had meant it.

There is a realization that should be happening right now. A moment of, _wow, Kageyama kissed me!_ There are motions he should be going through: surprise (he’d had plenty of this), denial (he had nearly succumbed), alienation (men, _kissing?_ ), disgust ( _he put his_ mouth _on mine_ ), questioning (but what does it _mean_ to kiss a person, really). 

And underneath the main stream of his consciousness, yes, these gears are turning. Puzzle pieces come together, logical leaps are made. But predominantly, his thought is this, uttered mostly to himself, as he blinks up at the darkening sky: “Asahi-san and Nishinoya aren’t _friends_ , are they?” 

Kageyama moves an inch, just enough to glance over his shoulder at Hinata, a painfully shy gesture. “No.” Hinata’s mouth twitches.

“You don’t want to be my friend, do you?”

“I will always be your friend.” And yet the way he bows his head adds a palpable _but_ to the end of that sentence.

There is a realization that should be happening right now—a process going on in Hinata’s brain, to answer a very important question.

_Do I love Kageyama?_

Except he has no argument either way—no evidence, no theory, no dilemma. As soon as he asks himself this question, he knows its answer. He has never been a creature of rationale or hypothesis; he doesn’t mince history, or the inner workings of his own brain, for meaning; he trades in deeds, not thoughts. He doesn’t need to divine the impulses of his heart when they govern every movement of his hands and feet. Love is his guiding principle. When he loves someone, he reaches for them.

In the terrific silence between them Hinata hears a very loud, very unguarded thought, the most he’s heard from Kageyama’s head in ages: **fuck, he hated it. He hates me.**

They are not allowed to have these types of miscommunications when they can _read each other’s minds_. 

Hinata grabs the front of Kageyama’s kimono, throws himself up on his tiptoes, and launches his mouth into Kageyama’s. The shoddy, moving, impromptu nature of this kiss guarantees that it doesn’t last long, and soon Hinata has lost his balance and tumbles back, except Kageyama catches him around the waist again. 

Second go-around, he doesn’t let go, pulls him in close, and when their mouths meet again it’s with parted lips. This sensation is like the other one but blown open, it begs for them to move and touch one another, so it’s not really Hinata’s fault that his tongue starts doing things in Kageyama’s mouth, hesitant at first and then in more confident strokes. The swelling warmth Hinata feels must be doing something to Kageyama, too, he senses it ballooning around them. The changing light shoots through the mountain pass, where they stand kissing one another with their contented dragons looking on, the scene bathed in orange vibrance as though what burns between them is the same fire burning at the center of the sun, the center of the universe itself. 

Hinata gasps and it seems he’s forgotten how to breathe through his nose, so they have to pause. He leans into his soutai’s chest, hearing his heartbeat. “Amazing,” he mutters, referring to everything. The dragons are making noises again but he doesn’t care.

He doesn’t realize his eyes are closed until he hears Kageyama speak without seeing his mouth move. “That was all I thought about while I was looking for you.”

“What, you mean…”

“Kissing you. I just kept thinking, ‘If I see him and he won’t forgive me, I need to kiss him once before we part ways.’” 

Hinata opens his eyes, but Kageyama’s cheek is resting against the top of his head and it’s impossible to see him. “It would be hard for us to part ways.”

“If you didn’t want to be around me anymore, I don’t think any force in the world could stop you from getting away. Even soutai.”

Hinata absolutely has to look Kageyama in the eye when he replies to this comment, so he struggles out of their embrace and glares up at him. “I can’t do this without you.” 

The corner of Kageyama’s mouth turns up. “So you admit that you can do it?” 

“Ugh, stupid.” Hinata beats his fist against Kageyama’s chest. “I was being nice to you! It’s not an invitation for you to prove a point!” He goes to whomp Kageyama again but his soutai catches his fist, hands wrapping around it. He pulls it toward him and, as the fist unfurls, kisses Hinata’s knuckles. Hinata feels very angry about this, but not in a way he knows how to express beyond scowling, and opening and closing his mouth several times in quick succession.

Kageyama says against his fingers, eyes closed, “I spoke to Oikawa-san about what we want to do, and I think he might help us after all.”

Hinata’s grin stretches his mouth wide enough it hurts.

_There is no one_ —no, no, there is Kageyama! He’s _relieved._ Katana at his side, his deep voice. He feels safer, feels his feathers smoothed. Kageyama is—comfort and challenge and camaraderie, all rolled into one, and it isn’t that he couldn’t live without him, but that he wouldn’t want to.

“Kageyama,” he says, croaks really, his voice clogged from sobbing. He says it just to feel it on his tongue but blue eyes flutter open and blink down at him. The light from the sunset has finally begun to die, which means it will be dark in the hills soon.

Kageyama releases his hand to wrap an arm around his shoulders, and he leads them toward their dragons. “We’ve got to get out of here and make camp somewhere before it gets cold. In the morning we can figure out a plan, then we’ll set out for Kyoto.”

But Hinata is more interested in the way Haizora and Kinboshi sit pertly awaiting them, Kinboshi as bright-eyed as Hinata has seen her in days. “Look at how happy they are that we’re all back together.” He sneaks out from under Kageyama’s arm to hug his dragon around her neck. Her purring vibrates against his cheek.

“Yeah, Kinboshi seems thrilled to know that you still like her best.”

Hinata laughs and pulls out of the hug to see Kageyama glaring into Haizora’s glinting eyes. 

“And _you_ , stop acting so smug.”

Hinata climbs onto Kinboshi’s back, twisting around to watch Kageyama do the same with Haizora. It reminds him—he’ll need to get another new saddle, somehow, and he doesn’t think the folks at Nekoma would be as welcoming a second time around. “Kageyama,” he calls. “Where are we going?”

Even with the sunlight drained from the sky, and no sign of the moon, Hinata can see the blue of Kageyama’s eyes. “Anywhere. You lead the way.”

* * *

 

August draws to a muggy close on the island of Karasuno. The days are long, the bugs are fearless in the night, the rice is nearly ready for harvest. And no one has seen a wild dragon in six weeks.

Perhaps, from a practical view, this is the best they could have hoped for. It’s well possible defeating the Arashi worked: the rest of the wild dragon population has its natural food supply back, and Karasuno’s stores have been forgotten.

Yes, this would be the optimistic, straightforward, enlightened way to look at things.

It is not, unfortunately, how Yachi Hitoka sees it.

She blinks up at the high noon sun, peeking past the overhang outside Kiyoko-san’s shop. Every night they go without a dragon appearance is a night she dreams, fitfully, of what she’ll do when—if—one finally appears. It’s getting miserable. _Just crisp me already, please._

“Hitoka-chan!” Yamaguchi’s voice is as sunny as the sky above.

She hoists her picnic basket into one arm and manages to wave as the freckled boy approaches the shop, Tsukishima following behind him, slower and not looking quite so friendly.

“Yamaguchi-kun, Tsukishima-kun.”

“Are you looking forward to our lunch?” says Yamaguchi happily. He takes the basket from her arms without so much as a whimper of complaint from Yachi herself. She feels sort of speechless at even this small act of kindness. People are really amazing. 

“I am!”

“Where were you thinking we’d go?”

“There’s too many bugs by the rice fields,” says Tsukishima, staring off into the village center. Yachi supposes this is technically a helpful comment.

She gives Yamaguchi a smile that he returns. “Why don’t we go to the beach? The breeze from the ocean should keep off the bugs.”

Yamaguchi agrees with this plan enthusiastically, and Tsukishima follows when he and Yachi take off, which must translate to consent. 

They chat nicely as they walk and set up their little meal on the beach. In practice this means she spearheads an enthusiastic discussion with Yamaguchi and they both apologize for nothing more than they should, and Tsukishima occasionally chimes in with his opinion, or to scold Yamaguchi for talking about him. The addition of the ocean breeze makes the heat and humidity relatively bearable, and Yachi starts to feel content for the first time in weeks. 

“Did you make these buns yourself?” Yamaguchi asks her at one point, with his mouth mostly full. It takes Yachi a moment to understand him.

“Oh! Yes. I made them. Are they all right?” She asks this in spite of the fact that she’s already had one and knows that they at least don’t taste like the sand under their feet. 

“They’re great to me. Neither me or my dad can cook for anything. Baking is out of the question.”

Yachi nods, and watches Tsukishima reach for another helping. “Tsukishima, I’ve heard Akiteru-san’s cooking is some of the best on the island, you must eat really well.” This sentence is somewhat strange, it seems like Tsukishima should be _Kei-kun_ and Akiteru _Tsukishima-san_ but that is also—very wrong. As long as Yachi has lived here she’s known Akiteru by his given name and Tsukishima as _Tsukki_ , then his family name as he got older. Yamaguchi is the only one who still calls him that, Tsukki.

Tsukishima flinches at the moment of his brother, though, and sits back looking slightly offended, like this is an indecent topic for discussion— _oh no_ , Yachi thinks, sinking into terror and a deep blush. _He’s so mad—_ “His cooking is passable,” Tsukishima finally says. He doesn’t sound too upset, more dismissive. Yachi exhales. She catches Yamaguchi watching Tsukishima out the corner of his eye, and for some reason feels embarrassed, like she’s witnessed something she shouldn’t, so she drops her chin and blinks rapidly at the picnic basket.

“There hasn’t been any news from the mainland, right, Hitoka-chan?” When she looks up again, Yamaguchi is smiling at her, and she’s calmer.

“Um, I don’t think so! I suppose it’s normal for these things to take… a month.” But she knows on dragonback it’s only a day to Kyoto, so it’s hard to convince herself of this fact.

“They probably got arrested for trying to blackmail the shogun,” Tsukishima yawns. Yamaguchi twitches nervously.

“They weren’t trying to _blackmail_ him,” he protests.

“Of course they were. Everyone knows Kageyama is some kind of bastard prince or something.”

“No,” Yamaguchi gasps. Yachi squeaks. Tsukishima squints at the both of them, then shakes his head.

“Try opening your ears for once and you’d know a lot more about what goes on around here.”

Yamaguchi sits there in stunned silence, and Yachi has to reel in her own surprise (Kageyama, a _prince_? Had she bowed to him deeply enough? Did he find her behavior disrespectful? COULD HE HAVE HER PUT TO DEATH?), before she lets a timid confession escape her. Truly it’s why she asked her friends here today, but she has never excelled at straightforwardness, to she has to seize the opening when it arrives.

“Hinata-kun, before he left, he… asked me to be in charge of subduing the next dragon attack.”

Yamaguchi’s mouth pops open, and Tsukishima’s eyebrows—she didn’t even know they were capable of this motion—lift ever-so-slightly.

“Hitoka,” Yamaguchi murmurs. “He asked you to do that all by yourself?”

“No, no!” She waves her arms—her intention was never to slander Hinata, her dear friend. “He just asked me to be the leader!” _I’m sorry_ , _I’m sorry_ , she thinks in the direction of the mainland, hoping it gets to him somehow. “And I wanted to ask you all if maybe—when the time comes, that is, since it’s been so long that… it can’t be too far off, I mean—I was just wondering if you might help me.” She wrings her hands in her lap, glancing between the two of them. “I know it’s a lot to ask.”

“Of course we will,” says Yamaguchi.

“Why would you ask me?” says Tsukishima.

Yamaguchi turns to him with the same suspicious look as before, but Yachi is too busy panicking under Tsukishima’s inscrutable gaze to take note.

“I’m sorry, Tsukishima-san! I shouldn’t have come to you! I didn’t mean to impose, oh.” She buries her face in her hands. Woe.

She hears Yamaguchi say, in a whisper, “ _Tsukki._ ”

“What? One of those things is attacking the village, you think I’m not going to shoot it?” 

Yachi’s heart races with anxiety, but she manages to get out a small defense for herself, and Hinata and Kageyama by extension. “You saw it, though, Hinata fighting the big dragon, and Kinboshi, she healed him!”

“So? Does that make them any less likely to kill _me_?” He reaches for another bun, nonplussed. “Are we having lunch or am I standing trial, here?”

“Tsukki,” says Yamaguchi, with forced composure. “Hitoka-chan is asking us to help her.” Tsukishima blinks at him, then glances back at Yachi. 

“Yeah. Sorry.”

She gives a little shrug and imagines burrowing into the sand, never to return. Yamaguchi quickly bows, moving a lot, as if to distract her from Tsukishima’s presence. 

“I’ll help you in any way I can! I swear!”

“Oh, thank you, Yamaguchi-kun, that means—”

“What is _that?_ ” 

Yachi blushes, but Tsukishima’s exclamation arrives independent of their conversation—he isn’t even looking at them, but out to the horizon, and for a moment Yachi is puzzled—does he mean the waves? The distant rocky outline of the mainland to the west? Or—oh, no, of course he means the three ships, sailing directly for Karasuno’s shores!

Wait.

This means that—there are _three ships sailing directly for Karasuno’s shores._

Yachi and Yamaguchi begin to yell at the same time. “We have to get Daichi-san! Ukai-san!” she shouts, as the the three of them leap to their feet (though Tsukishima’s effort might be less than a leap).

Yamaguchi stumbles toward the path back to the village, calling back to them. “Where would Daichi be? The stables?”

Yachi shakes her head, she doesn’t know, but Tsukishima’s voice cuts through their panic with wearied disdain. “He’s with Sugawara, obviously.” Tsukishima turns back to the ships on the horizon, arms over his chest. “I can’t believe I’m the only one who’s been paying attention.”

* * *

 

Daichi supposes, rationally speaking, that his and Suga’s relationship must’ve started changing a long time ago—not in the past few months, but in the past few years. Maybe even further back; maybe it's been slowly shifting since they were teenagers.

But its most recent stage, however, begins taking shape about three weeks prior to the arrival of three mysterious ships on Karasuno’s shores.

It takes him three days just to come around to calling what had happened between them _the kiss_. Before that, he circumvents it even in his head, as _that thing_ , or _the incident._ Perhaps he would be less hesitant to embrace reality if he knew he could place the blame somewhere else, but really, any way he slices it, the dilemma is their mutual creation. On some level he can’t even register that it had been Suga who first initiated the contact—he thinks, _he must be disgusted with me, to think I could touch him like that_ , and then he remembers. Most shame he’s felt in his life has seemed healthy, one way or another, a check on his baser instincts but this—it just gnaws at him.

And he has these dreams. 

Daichi is nice—kind. A good person. A good person who used to have good dreams about normal things, like carrying lumber, and going swimming, and big dinners. 

These, they aren’t nice dreams. Well—they’re nice, in the moment—but they’re _not_ nice. 

And he’ll wake up from one of these dreams and have to _do things_ and it’s fucking horrible, honestly. It sickens him.

So he avoids Suga, the dream-causer. That seems like the best plan, because what’s the point of meeting if he can’t even speak for the shame? And he wants to believe that if he stops seeing Suga, he’ll stop thinking about him, and so will go the dreams, and he will be free, finally. He will shut up whatever this strange desire might be. He will return to his usual, noble, nomadic existence, a purer soul for having struggled and overcome. 

Unfortunately for him, the two of them live on the same tiny island that they never leave, so this return to A Time Before Suga was always realistically beyond him. (Also, he’s known Suga his entire life, so there is no Time Before Suga.) 

_Reality._ It is grimy and bloody and bleak. And there are mosquitos, all the time. 

That said, he does _pretty damn well_ for a few weeks after the kiss. He gets the feeling Suga is helping him out a bit, sending Yamaguchi or Natsu on errands to the farm if he needs something, making sure he’s involved in a conversation whenever he sees Daichi coming in the street. With Saeko and Yui visiting, and Hinata and Kageyama preparing in earnest for their trip to the mainland, there are many places to be where Suga isn’t, and many people to talk to who aren’t him.

Then Saeko and Yui say their goodbyes, and Hinata and Kageyama flap off to Kyoto, carrying with them the hope for Karasuno’s future. Things grow quiet on the island. They never say as much, but everyone is waiting for another dragon to appear. 

In the silence it’s harder to side-step Suga. The lack of anything to do except wait leads the people of Karasuno to turn inward and when they’re not staring at the sky, they’re staring at each other.

About a week into this strange limbo, Ukai calls Daichi to the main house. He talks down to him from the porch. “Takeda-san has a cold.”

Daichi blinks up at his boss. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“He barely complains, it’s sort of creepy. But, I need you to go get him something from the apothecary.”

“Why don’t you do it?” Daichi asks, a knee-jerk reaction to the words _you_ and _apothecary_ being in the same sentence. Ukai frowns. Right—his _boss_. “Of course. I’ll go right away,” he amends, bowing.

He consoles himself in every way he can imagine on his march through the rice fields to the village. Unfortunately creativity was never his strong suit and so the only comforting thought he can come up with is, _this was bound to happen eventually._ At least the sentiment is true. Nearly a month has passed since they kissed. It’s a small world, and a smaller island.

A part of him crosses his fingers for the apothecary to be shut, though he’d have to come back later. Childish, sure, but knowing it’s immature of him to drag his feet doesn’t make them any lighter. 

But the door sits slightly ajar. He stares at it for a second, mind going blank, then hops up the steps to knock.

“Suga-san?”

“Come in!” trills Suga at once, from somewhere in the far back of the shop. He must not have recognized the voice. Daichi inhales, then slips through the door, sliding it closed behind him. “I’ll be with you in a moment!” So _friendly_ —no, he can’t have recognized Daichi. 

In the late afternoon the natural light filtering through the windows has dimmed, but it’s enough to illuminate the dust in the air, and not as dark as the last time Daichi stood in this room. He waits and scans the crowded shelves of bottles and boxes, focused on the rhythm of his breathing.

“Ah, I’m sorry about that, I have something on the—”

Daichi wheels around just as horror is dawning over Suga’s face, where he stands planted in the archway to the back room. Suga quickly rearranges his face into something resembling a smile but Daichi, he had caught it. 

“Sawamura-san. Hello.”

Daichi doesn’t have the same control over his facial features so he suspects he continues looking ill, like how he feels. “Hey.”

A long pause. Daichi fidgets under Suga’s fake-smile-stare.

Then Suga says, “Can I help you with something?”

Right. It’s a shop and he’s a customer. “Ukai-san. Well, Takeda-san. He’s sick with a cold. Ukai sent me…”

Suga nods and his smile dissolves as he turns his attention to the shelves, searching for something. “What sort of symptoms does he have?”

Symptoms… crap. “It’s a cold,” says Daichi weakly. This is Ukai’s fault, but he spies Suga toss him a tiny glare, and his stomach drops. “Sore throat? Aches?”

“I can take care of that.” Suga busies himself at his work table for a bit. Daichi watches him move expertly, a kind of special rhythm to his work, pestle grinding in time with the clink of the jars. Before he might have started a conversation based on this thought, a _you’re really good at this_ or _I like seeing an artist at work_ , but today, after everything, the silence of the moment feels impenetrable.

Finishing up, Suga clears his throat. He drops two little canvas bags on the counter beside his ledger, and then pries the large book open. “I suppose this is going on Ukai-san’s account?” He doesn’t look up, but Daichi (for some stupid reason) still decides nodding is the best way to answer. Not a second later Suga is staring at him, bent over the ledger, looking pretty fucking done with the whole situation.

“Ukai-san’s account,” Daichi chokes, grabbing the medicine hastily, and backing halfway to the door. Making a run for it. “G’bye—”

“I didn’t even tell you how to administer them!”

Well. Daichi is an idiot. We knew this.

He edges back into the room, clinging to the little bags, a humiliating image considering they’re each about the size of a fist. Frowning deeply, Suga completes his entry in the ledger, then turns to Daichi again. The glint of anger in his eyes is obvious, even to Daichi, who is feeling oblivious.

“The bag with the red string, put three pinches of it in hot water and inhale the steam. Once a day.” Suga closes—slams, really—the ledger, and it makes a tremendous _thud_. “The bag with the yellow string is a medicinal tea. It won’t taste good. Twice a day. Takeda should know how to prepare it.”

Finding he remains mute under pressure, Daichi’s answer is to bow. Deeply. Ideally this bow would scream, _I’m sorry for everything._ But the last time he tried to apologize outright—no, there’s something dangerous in this room. He needs to leave.

He straightens back up and Suga’s face meets him with a heart-stopping glare.

“There’s no reason for you to behave like this.”

Suga’s impulse control was always a little weak. 

Daichi blurts, “I don’t know what you mean,” and sees the fire behind Suga’s eyes burst a foot higher, a sun hotter. He beats his fists into the counter.

“We aren’t children, Daichi—you can’t just give me the silent treatment, it’s beneath you.”

With this accusation most of the mouseish fear in Daichi recedes. His shoulders seem to lift. He is—more himself. A little more ready to have this conversation, if only a little.

“I apologize.”

“Oh, don’t give me that—stoic apology,” Suga seethes, and Daichi’s face goes a little red for being caught so fast. “You are all—” Suga wheels around to begin stomping through his workspace. “—storybook honor and nobility—” He slams a jar down on a table and Daichi jumps. “—when it’s an _act_! To hide your _feelings_!” Another _slam._ And he kicks a crate aside. “Because, _oh no_ , how dare a handsome leader man show passion! Hoo-hoo!” Suga waves a jar about flippantly and almost loses his hold on the thing, and in spite of the walloping Daichi laughs under his breath. “And of course it builds up in your system and then you take it out on—poor lonely apothecaries.” The lingering grin slides from Daichi’s face. Suga’s back is to him. The hysterical venom in his tone has died down. “It’s frankly very… inconsiderate. You either live by your passion or you reel it in. You’ve got to think of other people.”

Now would be an excellent time for him to find his voice, but he is stricken again, this time by the emotional fragility in the way Suga speaks. It makes his meaning all the more clear—Daichi can’t fathom opening himself up like that, perhaps because he fears what’s inside is not as beautiful as what Suga has to offer. Suga blooms and he is, as always, elegant and bright; Daichi has never bloomed, he is the anti-bloom. The root in the ground. But in this metaphor, at least, it takes two of them to make a living thing. 

Suga has ceased to rampage and turns back to him, his anger waned to sadness. “You aren’t going to say anything.” 

“Suga,” he manages, with difficulty. It’s nothing, a false start.

Suga bows his head, rests his hands on the countertop and toys with his fingers. “It’s all right. We don’t have to talk.” He lifts his chin an inch. Not enough to meet Daichi’s eye. “I think maybe you’re trying to protect my feelings by avoiding me.”

_No—it’s_ my _feelings_ , he wants to say, but the implication of Suga’s words keeps him dumbfounded into silence.

Finally Suga looks him square in the face. He has the hardened, proud expression of a man negotiating his peaceful surrender. “It would be kinder of you to be honest with me. I’d like to move on with my life.”

“Me too,” says Daichi, just above a whisper. It’s true—he would like to move on, from whatever is happening here. He hates it, seeing Suga like this. Hates that he caused it. _Shame_.

Suga gives a short nod and abruptly exits into the back room, saying as he goes, “So we’re agreed. Goodnight.”

Daichi doesn’t get to say his goodbye. He trudges back into the street and walks home, piecing together meanings, swatting at the twilight bugs. 

* * *

Suga can remember: he was seventeen, and they told him life would be like this.

He was with Asahi and Noya, who were a little older, on the road to Karasuno. Suga had caught them in a compromising moment and rather than rearing back in disgust or surprise he started to cry. He confessed to them in a blur; he said that he had always felt different, that he thought he was alone. They were good to him—comforted him—taught him what he needed to know. 

At one point Noya, explaining the way of the world, said that beyond a few secretive circles in Kyoto and Edo, he would always for the most part be alone. He would probably fall in love, like some people do, and the chances of whoever he loved reciprocating would be slim—impossible, even. “You might get lucky,” Asahi had added. Suga remembers that they were sitting around a fire, and Noya leaned into Asahi’s side sleepily. “But not everyone gets lucky.”

But Suga, he was so young, he’d thought to himself, _I’ll certainly get lucky_. Even living on Karasuno, an island of no more than two hundred residents, he of all people, smart and good-looking, sometimes even kind and funny, could find someone to love him.

What a stupid child he’d been, he now realizes. Ignorant and arrogant and _stupid_. 

And of everyone on this rock he could’ve fallen for, it had to be someone too considerate to even reject him properly. The first week or so Suga had been so hung up on being kissed back that he’d entertained the idea Daichi might come around. Perhaps he’d just been scared off by the shock of his own sexual awakening! Perhaps he felt embarrassed, and eventually he would arrive at Suga’s in the middle of the night and start making overtures or, _better yet_ , disrobe. Suga lost himself in such fantasies and gave Daichi the space to figure things out. 

Then another week went by. And another.

No one, Suga reasoned, could take that long to have such a simple revelation. Even if the revelation happened to be something as earth-shattering as wanting to fuck men. You’d have to be thicker than a rock—and Daichi wasn’t thick, was he? Granted, Suga had seen him do some unexpectedly thick things. But the longer he kept skidding around Suga in the street and limiting his greetings to a wave and a shaky smile, the harder it became to believe in _eventually_. 

When he’d come into the shop today, that was it. There could be no other explanation for Daichi’s silence, his standoffishness. The way he’d only been able to speak when Suga announced he wanted to move on, and all he’d said had been _me too_. 

Suga goes to bed that night thinking, _this was my first glimmer of hope in ten years_. Ten years! Will it be another decade before the next? This time, should he wish for _three_ kisses? Some necking? Does he dare to dream of fleeting sexual contact?

He jokes a lot with himself because he’s sad. And when the irony dies away, the sadness is still there, waiting for him at the foot of his bed as he settles down to sleep. 

In a moment that strikes him as unpleasantly familiar, he’s roused by someone at the door just before drifting off.

“I’m coming,” he snaps at the void. He hauls himself up and tugs on his yukata, being sure to tie it this time, lest his visitor have any ideas, and doesn’t bother lighting a candle. The moonlight coming in through the windows is enough for him to see, and he doesn’t want to seem like he welcomes the intrusion.

He slides open the door with a single jerk of his arm, prepared to glower down at whoever—

Leaning against the exterior of the apothecary, head down, is the blurry darkened shape of Sawamura Daichi.

Because, _of course_! That’s his luck.

And he’s nervous, too, because the last time Daichi showed up at his home late at night… it had started them down this path. Or at least kicked their pace up a few notches.

“Daichi,” he breathes, a little mad, a little anxious. “What are you doing here?”

With how he’s standing Suga can’t make out his face, but—his voice comes out startling in its intensity. Even when all he says is, “Sugawara-san…” It’s low and Suga—likes that. He panics.

“I think you should go before you do something you regret.” He starts to close the door, but Daichi’s hand snakes up and latches around his arm.

“I’m not going to regret this.”

Finally he looks up and Suga half-gasps at the expression on his face, his eyes dark and serious and—something else lingers there that Suga fears naming even in the privacy of his head, even though it’s what this look _screams_ , what Daichi’s strong presence radiates as he guides Suga backward and slips inside the shop with him, shutting the door behind them. That look, Suga only knows it better the more he stares into Daichi’s dark, smooth face: lust.

Nothing is said, not at first. It’s just Daichi’s fierce gaze slicing through the darkness to meet Suga’s astonished one; it’s just the shallow reverberations of their uneven breaths. Daichi steps close to him—and closer—his hands find Suga’s elbows, just barely holding them, so close that Suga can feel the heat of his breath and watch his eyes going half-lidded as they drop to Suga’s mouth.

Suga’s brain has gone awash with desire to the point where he can only consider, vaguely, that his expectations for future interactions with Daichi are undergoing a significant reversal.

Daichi speaks, right by Suga’s parted lips, his panting mouth. Their conversation is hushed and half-silent. “I’m thinking, you also want…”

“Yes,” Suga murmurs, so frantic to get his wanting across that it makes him lightheaded, weak in the knees.

“What do you want me to do?” It’s embarrassing, but Suga hears himself whimper in the back of his throat. Daichi steps closer, if that were even possible, making their hips bump—Daichi’s _hips_ , he could know them, he might… “Like this?” Daichi says into Suga’s mouth, and kisses him. _We are kissing again_ , Suga thinks, mentally throwing his arms up in wonder. It’s the same as before—perfectly Daichi, his fingertips on Suga’s jaw, lips moving with slow precision. Suga’s enthusiasm finally graduates from _paralyzed_ with joy to _energized_ by it; he presses back into Daichi, using his tongue, using his teeth, and he hears Daichi respond with an embarrassing, really fucking delightful sound. 

They break apart and Suga gasps. Daichi’s lips are on his neck at once, and in between peppered kisses he mutters, “Like this? Like this?” over and over, as if Suga’s gasping and whining weren’t answer enough.

Suga backs into the counter and drags Daichi into him. He pulls them together tighter, pushing his hips into Daichi’s with the hope he’ll push back and he does—he does with such earnest that he stops kissing Suga’s neck and focuses for a moment only on grinding his hips into Suga’s, eyes closed, mouth open. That expression—it’s impossible for Suga not to take Daichi’s open mouth with his own. It’s probably a given that they’re both aroused by now, but he relishes the mutuality of it anyway. He will relish all the touches they are about to share, the sighs and the moans and everything that’s old and familiar but also new, with Daichi. He will relish that it is _Daichi_ —lucky doesn’t cover it. He relishes all of this. His heart pounds in his chest and he thinks, endlessly, to whatever god might be up late tonight and listening to the thoughts of mortals: _thank you. Thank you thank you thank you._  

Suga pulls away from a stunned, breathless Daichi with a grin, and takes both his hands in his own to lead him toward the back room. “Come here, I have so much to show you.”

* * *

And so they entered the most recent and—for the foreseeable future—final stage of their relationship. The stage that Yamaguchi interrupts on the day the ships arrive.

The boy’s frantic, distorted voice drifts through the apothecary. He pounds at the door, too, rattling it. 

Suga doesn’t open his eyes. “If we leave it, do you think he’ll go away?”

“No, and I’m getting up.”

“ _No_ ,” Suga whines, trying to throw himself on top of Daichi and pin him to the bed, but he’s too slow and lands in the warm spot left by his torso on the mattress. Daichi’s back, broad and smooth and shiny with sweat, rises above him and he pouts. “This is why I hate doing it during the day.” He watches Daichi get up and find his clothes. Once he’s got his yukata on and the show is over, Suga throws his arm over his eyes. “We’ve got to go do things after. All I want to do is sleep.”

“You’re lazy,” says Daichi. Suga can hear the smile in his voice.

“Not where it counts!”

“You don’t think it counts for Yamaguchi-kun?” Suga hisses and stuffs his face into a pillow. Daichi laughs softly. “I like doing it in the day. You can see everything.” He says this rather innocently, like he’s talking about the weather, not noticing the groan that comes unbidden out of Suga.

Regrettably Yamaguchi finally raises his voice enough to be heard in the back: “SAWAMURA-SAN! I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE!”

Daichi looks at Suga, Suga looks at Daichi. They pale at once.

“ _What_ does he know?” Suga whispers hysterically. Daichi struggles to tie his obi as fast as possible.

“I have no idea!”

“No one _knows_ , right? We have been so subtle—” 

“I’ve got to go.” Daichi disappears into the front room, now reasonably dressed. Suga swears under his breath and starts scrambling to find his own clothes. Meanwhile, he can hear everything being said between Daichi and Yamaguchi upfront.

“Yamaguchi—”

“Sawamura-san, ah, finally—have you been—exercising?”

“How did you know where to find me?”

“Um—Tsukki said you’d, uh, be with Sugawara!” Suga has got his yukata on now, and he finds his obi half-tucked under the mattress without a clue to how it got there. 

“Did he say how he knew that?” 

Suga gets the obi tied and rushes into the front just in time for a red-faced Yamaguchi to blurt, “Sawamura-san, please, there are ships coming for Karasuno!”

Daichi turns back to Suga, gaping, looking for some assistance reacting. “I guess they’re home,” Suga offers.

Daichi addresses Yamaguchi again: “You said _ships_ —how many?”

“Three! Big ones!”

“You don’t send three ships for two boys,” Daichi says, as much to himself as to Suga, who comes up behind him, squeezing his shoulder.

“You do if they’re bringing rations.”

* * *

 

“Three ships, a lot of food, but no Shouyou.”

“Or Kageyama,” Asahi adds softly. 

“Not even a note,” Noya mutters, kicking at the dirt. He sounds like a disappointed, neglected father and Asahi smiles to himself.

By most estimations it’s still summer, but the cool undercurrent in the wind that blows through town that day hints at autumn. They work in the shade of the shop’s overhang—Asahi washing equipment, Noya mostly shooting the breeze and lending the occasional hand.

Asahi isn’t sure who might be in earshot, so he sends his question Noya’s way in silence: _what do you think of Yachi?_

Noya pulls a face and turns away. Now, for the record, they are both extremely big fans of Yachi in general. Like Kageyama, she had arrived at Karasuno around the same time as Asahi and Noya; unlike Kageyama, she was cheerful; they had in her a fellow outsider and playmate. And she was the only girl in her age group on the island—she occupied a special place in their hearts.

Which made it difficult to respond when, earlier that day, she came to them and asked that they refrain from attacking the next dragon sighted on Karasuno. Hinata had left her in charge of this, she explained. Then Noya gave her one of his most thoughtful (read: terrifying) stares and she went red and disappeared in a cloud of apologies. Asahi had scolded Noya for, once again, failing to recognize his own powers of intimidation, but other than that and the _oh brother_ look they’d exchanged at her request, they had failed to discuss it so far.

“No one’s listening,” Noya grunts, stretching. “We can just talk!”

Not entirely convinced that Ukai (or worse, Yachi herself—he’d hate for her to know they have doubts), Asahi keeps his voice down. “I think Hinata-kun takes a lot of pride in knowing Karasuno wants to make a change. And Yachi seems to have caught his sense of purpose.”

Noya sighs and tugs a stool toward Asahi’s washbucket, plopping down opposite him while he scrubs the soot off his hammer. “You know I think Shouyou is a special kid. Not just because of the soutai.”

“I do know that.” _He reminds you of yourself at that age._ Asahi sees his own smile in the wash water’s reflection.

“Shut up,” Noya mutters. “If anyone could do this…” He gestures loosely. “Fucking insane thing, it’d be him.” He lowers his arm, puts his chin on his fist. “On the other hand, anyone who thinks I’m going to see a dragon hurling toward me with teeth bared and _wave hello_ —you know, I’ll only play nice if they do.”

Asahi runs his brush over the hammer’s smoothed corners, still smiling. “So you don’t think you’d ever be like Hinata? And befriend one and fly it.”

He is teasing, a little, but as always Noya is surprisingly sensitive to such things and blushes in defending his seriousness. “That one dragon is different, all right? She’s nice and everything, like Shouyou.”

“What about the black one?”

Noya rolls his eyes. “That one is… like Kageyama.”

“And _you_ going to explain your reasoning to Yacchan?”

Throwing his head back, Noya groans in dramatic petulance. “She’s too small! I can’t deny her!”

“You’re also very small,” Asahi points out.

“It doesn’t render me _immune_.” Noya’s chin drops again, and he snaps his fingers. “I know—this is all part of Shouyou’s master plan.”

Asahi has to laugh at this. “You think Hinata Shouyou has a master plan?” Noya starts to laugh too, like he does, with the humor starting in his belly and eventually shaking his whole frame. Their soutai flickers nicely beneath the conversation, warming them both, so they smile at one another. Asahi starts to feel, like he does, immensely happy that they are together. As their laughter wanes he voices a stray thought, “I hope Daichi and Suga are drinking enough water.” And Noya starts to laugh again, twice as boisterous as before.

But the moment shatters when a shriek pierces the air, from a few streets away: not a human cry but the wail of… a dragon.

Asahi watches the grin slide, centimeter by centimeter, off Noya’s face, and he can feel his own expression melting just the same. They are on their feet in another second—Asahi hauling his hammer out of the washbucket, Noya already halfway down the alley, shouting to himself. “Fuck! I thought I’d get to sleep on it, at least!”

Asahi charges after him, his strides making twice Noya’s distance in the same time, so he’s nearly caught up to his soutai when something catches the sleeve of his yukata and pulls him back.

He hears her voice before he sees her. “Azumane-san, _please_!” And then he’s staring down into Yachi Hitoka’s tiny, fear-stricken face.

He is about to say— _it’s all right, Yacchan—we’ve got you—don’t be scared!_ When she takes his surprised pause as an opportunity to sprint past him, and then skids around a bewildered Noya, too. Screaming at the top of her lungs, hair sticking every direction, her bare feet coated in dirt, she has the depths of fear in her eyes and yet she powers through every hesitation. She must be thinking of Shouyou, Asahi realizes, as he watches Yachi charge unarmed into her first encounter with a wild dragon. Every anxious instinct in his body says he ought to get between her and the beast but the reasonable part of him knows, there’s no stopping a hurricane. 

She halts before the dragon, war cries ceased, her shoulders rising and falling with ragged gasps of breath. Like at the center of a hurricane there is quiet, for just a moment; Yachi Hitoka lifts her arm and extends it, a steady palm facing upward, toward the maw of the quivering beast. 

* * *

Strange how in the midst of all this, Oikawa’s deepest fascination is with his own hands.

You see, he had won callouses over the years from the handle of his sword. Sometimes the callouses will dry out, and crack and bleed, and make a very ugly scene of his palms—which he hates. He believes hands should be beautiful, or at least have an attractive quality. Hands are made to _do_ and _create_ , they’re the mind’s best workers. What you do with your hands speaks to who you are. Obsessed with action, it only seems fitting to him that their presentation should reflect their noble purpose. 

He can’t help wondering what it will be like to watch his callouses fade, now that his days of daily swordplay, dawdling away the hours, are over. Perhaps he’ll finally have beautiful hands, for the first time in his memory. Twenty-one years old. He shuts his eyes and tilts his head back, letting the sun find his skin. At the news, he had ordered everyone to leave his garden, so he sits alone, collecting his thoughts. Iwaizumi had been running errands—he may not even know. Oikawa may get to tell him. The idea makes him smile to himself. Typically Iwaizumi was the one making announcements; to break it to him would be a delight. 

The warmth on his face cuts out briefly, and his head tilts to the side. Strange. In another second the sun is back but… a shadow had passed above him. Yet there are no tall trees in the garden, or birds large enough to create such an effect. Puzzled, he opens his eyes. 

That’s when the shouting starts.

He shoots to his feet. He can tell the hysteria comes from somewhere on the grounds, just outside his living complex—he bursts out of the courtyard and weaves through the maze of covered walkways, not a servant in sight, the sounds of panic growing louder. In his head he considers the worst: mutiny. A hostile takeover. He sorts through mental indexes for the plans he’d drawn up for every possible situation—escape routes—if the guard has turned, Mattsun will have brought the boys to attention, to see they have their swords at the ready. They would quash an uprising at its root. He has it all planned out. 

Until he rounds a corner and the grounds open up before him and there—crushing the landscaping, just absolutely _ruining_ it—are two fucking dragons, with riders on their backs. Their massive wingspans take up the entire space of the yard, and they throw their heads back and roar.

Well then. No wonder the staff are running around screaming. 

Oikawa doesn’t exactly consider himself a blushing maiden, but his heart races at the energy of them, filling up the entire complex. Living gods, that’s what the stories said.

“Oikawa-san.”

So distracted is he by the spectacle of their entrance, he doesn’t actually recognize Tobio until he hears the voice and catches sight of him sliding off the back of the black one. It has his same icy stare, how funny.

“Isn’t this delightful?” says Oikawa, through his teeth.

“We’re back.”

“I can see that. You’re frightening my people.” Whoever was screaming before has apparently fled, but it’s safe to assume they’re cowering in a closet somewhere instead of doing their job, which means Oikawa continues to take issue.

“The dragons and your people are fine.” Kageyama comes toward him, the air around him different than when last they met. The pouty little raincloud that had hovered around his head seems to have dissipated at last. Oikawa doesn’t like this, though he catches sight of Chibi-chan climbing off the orange animal and knows it’s partly his own doing. _I’m too nice_.

“Why are you making a scene, Tobio?”

“Hinata and I spent a week camping out and talking.”

“Hi!” chimes the Chibi-chan, bouncing up beside Tobio with a winning smile. Oikawa narrows his eyes. _Have they done it?_ He can’t tell. Damn it.

“We decided,” Tobio continues, his tone giving away no interesting information about his personal life (boo), “that if we ally with you, the dragons can’t be secret. People will only follow us if they see what we can be, together.” One of Oikawa’s eyebrows quirks up, of its own accord: some political sense out of Tobio. Amazing. And he’s doing all of the talking himself, Chibi watching with that smile on his face, as though this were especially for him.

“ _If_ you ally with me,” Oikawa simpers. “Do you think I don’t know that you need me?”

“We need each other,” Chibi offers, poking his head between the two of them. Tobio lifts his chin like he’s steeling himself to answer. Their dragons are stomping all over the flower beds. 

“This partnership benefits all of us. When you’re shogun, we will pledge our services to you. As your first dragon-mounted samurai.” Chibi’s eyes light up at the word, _samurai_. 

But Oikawa is too excited at the prospect of getting to show them up to mock this tiny detail, even inwardly. He claps his hands together. “Then you’d better get pledging, I suppose!”

Tobio blinks the determination out of his expression. “What?” Chibi’s orange little head careens cutely to the side. They’re clueless and it’s great.

“We got word from a messenger a few hours ago. My father passed away yesterday morning, and I just received word from the emperor.” Chibi leans forward, as if preparing to console him, but then he catches Oikawa’s smile. He has to inhale before he says it, to remind himself he’s still alive, and he lifts his hands to frame his own face in childish glee. “You’re looking at the true ruler of Japan!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> an aside: if there's going to be smut in this fic (and i'm waffling on that) it will be kagehina, given that they're the main pairing. however, i'm amenable to the idea of writing a nsfw side story for daisuga that picks up where the fade-to-black left off... 
> 
> this chapter ends the "second act" of this story. there are four acts in all, which makes this the halfway point. cheers.


	9. sacrifices

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome back.

Snow on the mainland is different than snow on Karasuno.

Hinata has never known weather like this. Without a sea to slurp up the  powder, the whiteness extends in every direction, from every outlook he finds. The snow never ends, and it comes down harder and faster than it ever could back home. And it’s cold.

But people here don’t stop for _snow_ or _cold._ They keep going, in their lives, even the day after a blizzard. The storm only stopped a few hours ago and here is Hinata, up with the sunrise, being run through his paces by Iwaizumi in the training build where—more than four months ago now—they had first met Oikawa.

“Move your feet! You’re supposed to be fast!”

He remembers that, back then, he’d been frightened and angry.

“Where are your eyes?”

It’s a distant memory, from a prehistoric past. Times are changing—times _have_ changed.

He throws up his sword, parrying one of Iwaizumi’s blows; his teacher smiles in satisfaction. He can feel that satisfaction coursing through him, too—he feels taller, bigger, even against someone with Iwaizumi’s size and experience. Weather-permitting they would have an audience for their training session, and he misses them now, in this moment of victory. He moves to strike—a little overambitious, maybe, but—

But nothing. Iwaizumi deflects the blow and hooks his sword at the hilt, sending it flying.

Hinata halts in the middle of the arena and throws back his head to groan.

“Better,” Iwaizumi admits, retrieving Hinata’s weapon from the sandy floor. “Don’t celebrate your win until the fight is over. If your good move is followed by a bad move, what’s the point?”

“Right.” Hinata glumly accepts his sword again. He’s sweating despite the freezing temperatures, and it’s uncomfortable. Even indoors he can see his breath on the air.

Iwaizumi takes one look at him and says, “We’re done for now.”

“But—I’m supposed to learn as fast as I can!”

“A few hours off is good for your body.” As soon as he’d returned Hinata’s sword, he’s prying it from tiny sweaty hands, and Hinata pouts correspondingly. He’s not allowed to have the weapon with him outside training, and even though he never particularly liked carrying a sword, he feels like a child every time Iwaizumi takes it away.

“I’ll never catch up in time,” Hinata complains, plopping down on the sidelines.

Iwaizumi pauses before he says, “If you’d admit that dragon of yours is a weapon, you wouldn’t have to go through this.”

Hinata pulls a face: if he has to hear this one more time, he’s going to kick somebody. Probably not Iwaizumi-san, but _somebody_. “She’s not a weapon.”

“Then,” says Iwaizumi, returning Hinata’s sword to the rack at the far end of the room, “you know samurai are well-rounded in combat. You need to be able to do more than shoot a crossbow.” Hinata glowers at Iwaizumi’s back, but he can’t argue. Well, he _could_ , but every time he tries he ends up humiliated, and that’s even less fun than all this training. Iwaizumi turns around and the corner of his mouth curves up—Hinata’s the only one not having fun. “Come back in a while, and we’ll do some hand-to-hand practice.”

Hinata whimpers. The hand-to-hand training has left him sporting bruises for weeks, new on top of old. That’s in addition to the soreness, splintering his muscles.

Iwaizumi dismisses him with the jerk of a thumb, and Hinata shuffles outside, kicking the fresh-fallen snow out of his way as he heads back to his and Kageyama’s quarters. The servants he sees on his way bow in acknowledgment; they know him now. And they’re the only ones braving the outdoors today, more out of necessity than desire, he supposes.

He goes straight to Kageyama’s room and finds it empty, but with a crackling fire. The heat comes over him like an embrace—it’s an easy warmth, not one he has to earn with sweat. He drags the bed as close as he can to the sunken hearth at the center of the room and collapses. The mattress is comfortable and smells familiar.

Kageyama will be back… eventually. Soon, hopefully. He’ll just wait for a while, and be here to greet him. Yes, it’s a great plan, he thinks. His eyes sink closed.

He wakes to the brush of something strange against his cheek.

“Ah!” He jerks away from the touch, which felt like—like a static spark—and finds himself looking up into Kageyama’s eyes.

“Sorry?” Kageyama pulls his hand from Hinata’s face, and Hinata exhales. It makes sense now, but he will never be entirely used to the feeling their skin kindles. He’s always discovering it over again—it never gets _old_.

 Kageyama kneels on the bed while Hinata struggles to sit up, body still aching.

“How long was I out?”

“I don’t know, but it’s the late afternoon now.”

Hinata flops forward with a groan. “I was supposed to meet Iwaizumi-san.”

“It’s too late for training,” Kageyama says, a note of hopefulness in his voice. He has color in his cheeks from the cold, and snow caught in his hair. **Stay with me.**

Hinata watches Kageyama over his knee, smiling into the fabric of his hakama. “Iwaizumi-san would say it’s never too late for training.”

Kageyama frowns earnestly. “He wouldn’t.”

“Okay, maybe not. I’ll stay.”

A proper smile lighting his face, Kageyama reaches between them to brush some of the hair away from Hinata’s eyes. “You’re sleeping in the middle of the day.”

“I’m _tired_.” He doesn’t often get tired, but when it happens, he’s unbearable and whiny. He knows this and he can’t help it.

“Samurai don’t get tired.”

“Then I guess that’s why I’m not a samurai yet.”

 Kageyama snorts and instinctively, in reply, Hinata lunges toward him and tugs the short ponytail sitting at the back of his head—Kageyama pushes him away.

“Stop doing that!”

“But it looks so funny!” Apparently it’s bad not to wear your hair pulled back when you’re a samurai, so ever since Kageyama got his promotion, he’s been tying his in a tight top knot—or, it’d be a top knot if he had enough hair for that. But he doesn’t, so it’s just this stubby little tail on his head. It looks kind of cool, and Hinata is constantly overwhelmed by the desire to play with it. Unobstructed by bangs, the strength of his brow and his eyes intensifies.

“You’re annoying,” Kageyama says, battling him off, but he’s grinning too. In their struggle, he gets his arms around Hinata, and pins him to his lap—Hinata’s arms fall naturally from Kageyama’s hair to loop around his neck, and then he’s being kissed.

Like the touch to his cheek earlier, this never gets old. He gets the feeling that kissing is nice for people even when they aren’t soutai, but when they _are_ , oh boy—it’s… extra nice. He doesn’t really have a word for it, except that it makes him feel puddley, but also as if he’s on fire? So like a puddle of fire. And it’s gotten even better now that they’ve practiced a lot and Kageyama does less biting.

Yes, kissing is grand. He could never have enough of kissing.

Kageyama’s hands slip down to his hips and his heart thumps into his throat and there’s that weird surge of heat over his body and he thinks—he thinks he’s had enough kissing.

He pulls away, a hand to his mouth, and starts climbing out of Kageyama’s lap post-haste.

He hopes—futilely, of course, considering the mind-meld—that Kageyama won’t notice. But he has to turn away to avoid that scowl, and the waves of confusion and annoyance coming off his partner.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!”

“Don’t lie.”

“I’m not _lying_ ,” he lies. He settles down, hunched and defensive, while Kageyama scoots around to meet his eye.

“Is this about…” Kageyama begins, but as soon as he brings it up, Hinata digs in deeper and it’s obvious he’s just making things harder for himself by pressing.

They glare at each other for a moment. Hinata’s not budging. The difficulty of throwing in the towel shows on Kageyama’s face, but eventually he sighs, and turns to stare at the fire.

“Whatever.”

Things were so lovely a minute ago and Hinata desperately wants a way back to that place. A little guilty at having tanked the moment (with good reason… he thinks? Maybe), he nudges Kageyama with his foot. “How was your meeting with Oikawa-san today?”

A long pause. Kageyama says, still staring at the fire, “Twelve weeks.”

“Huh? Until…”

“We have twelve weeks before we can start anticipating the invasion.” He glances up at Hinata. “Twelve weeks left of winter. When spring comes, our shores aren’t safe anymore.”

“That’s not much time at all.”

Kageyama nods. “It’s not enough time to resolve the dragon conflict separately.”

Hinata’s eyes widen—he is openly, naively more invested in ending the dragon war than defending the country from invasion. “But—the dragons—”

“I know,” says Kageyama, raising a hand to stay his tongue, unsuccessfully.

“We can do more demonstrations!” They spent most of their free time during the fall taking to streets and squares with Haizora and Kinboshi, waving a decree from the shogun himself, spreading their message of change. “As soon as the weather’s a little better, we’ll go out, we’ll do a show or something!” People know them now— _the dragon boys_ , that’s what Kyoto calls them. Hinata would believe they’re on to something there, he _would_ , he tries to think that the city sees them as more than a novelty act… but it’s hard to tell where they stand, against a dozen others who advertise themselves as the great dragonkeepers of all-time. Winter came, and they were driven indoors, and none of it stuck. Just another message with no one really listening.

Kageyama accepts and understands that better than Hinata will ever allow himself. “No more demonstrations,” he says quietly. “Oikawa-san has decided to take more aggressive measures, and I… agree with him.”

“Aggressive?” That’s a scary word, especially coming from Kageyama and Oikawa-san.

Kageyama toys with his lower lip. “Worst case scenario, we start a civil war.”

“A…” Hinata has never considered the possibility that they could aggravate the situation before they improve it. He still doesn’t know if he understands, completely—but the way Kageyama looks at him is serious and sad, and he can sense that his concerns are honest. This is no exaggeration. A small voice in the back of his head wonders, _Have I been selfish?_

Kageyama reaches between them and takes his hand, then lifts it to his lips. “I don’t want you to worry about it,” he says. The kiss he leaves on the back of Hinata’s hand tingles for minutes afterward, but it’s frustrating, too. Seeing Kageyama handle him so delicately.

“I want to know what’s going on!” He scoots toward Kageyama, his earlier hesitance at closeness forgotten. Kageyama’s eyes skate down his torso, but he doesn’t think anything of it. “Maybe I can come to one of your meetings with Oikawa-san, sometime?”

“That isn’t a good idea.”

“I want to know what’s going on!”

“You wouldn’t like the things being said.”

“Why? What are you saying?”

“It’s not _me_ ,” Kageyama says through his teeth. “We’re lucky that Oikawa-san is willing to work with us, but he has a different way of thinking—”

“What is he saying?” Hinata’s temper flares at even the suggestion of—whatever Kageyama is suggesting!

Kageyama might be battling some frustration himself, but he manages to keep his voice level, and he grabs Hinata’s elbows. “You wouldn’t like how he talks about dragons.”

“Oh.” With Kageyama’s hold on him and this explanation, Hinata relaxes. “I thought… he’s with us?”

“He _is_ with us. But you can’t change how people think just like that, you remember? From Karasuno?” Hinata gives him a tiny nod, somewhat scolded. “We’re working toward the same goal. Let me handle it. Focus on your training.”

“Mmph,” says Hinata, rubbing at his sore bicep. Kageyama, keenly aware of his disappointment, leans over and kisses his cheek. This reminds Hinata of the careful hand-kiss earlier, and he grimaces.

“It’s creepy how you’re so nice and—gentle, now!”

He doesn’t really _want_ to check out Kageyama’s reaction when he says this, but the beat of silence that follows stokes his curiosity. He turns his head ever so slightly, eyeing Kageyama: he’s glaring into the fire, and when he feels Hinata’s gaze, his head snaps up. His thought is clear in Hinata’s head.

**What are you not talking about?**

_Nothing. Nothing._

Hinata doesn’t know what he expects to follow—his pulse has quickened—but he never would have guessed what actually comes out of Kageyama’s mouth.

“You want to go flying?”

He sits back, blinking. Flying… Maybe Kageyama had believed him, after all. He grins. “Ah, yeah!”

So they bundle up and head for the stables—a massive complex, big enough that when they’d started settling into the palace, an aisle had been cleared just to accommodate Haizora and Kinboshi. They find the gold dragon occupied chewing a log (her toy) while Haizora sits up, watching the snow-covered mountains through the stable window.  Kageyama has pulled black cloth up his face to shield it from the wind, and with only his eyes peeking through, the resemblance between him and Haizora is even more striking. Kageyama pulls down both their saddles—they had his made in the same design as Kenma’s saddle for Kinboshi, but with darker leather—and hands Hinata his.

“Kinchan, I heard the shogun has been bad-talking you,” Hinata murmurs in his dragon’s ear. She narrows her huge golden eyes at him, not appreciating the humor.

Hinata watches Kageyama’s back while they tack. The winter layers might make him look more broad-shouldered than he is. It’s been months since they saw each other anything less than bundled up, it feels; he tries to remember that bath they took together in the stream, after Kinboshi healed him. Had Hinata noticed his shoulders then? He fumbles with a buckle on the saddle. Kinboshi glances back at him.

“We shouldn’t be gone too long,” Kageyama announces, as they’re walking the dragons out. “I think it’s going to snow again.”

“I want to see the sunset,” Hinata calls. Kageyama is ahead of him, and he swings onto Haizora’s back in a fluid motion. Together they’re a shadowy figure, a blur of black and blue. A little monstrous. Hinata swallows.

He hastily wraps his own face and ears, same as his partner, only his mask is deep silken red. The instant he’s settled onto Kinboshi’s back, the nervous kicking in his stomach goes still. It’s always like that—an immediate sense that yes, this is where he’s meant to be. When he’s certain of nothing else, he can be certain of flying.

One after the other, they shoot out of the stable yard, into the sky above the city.

They don’t try to hide themselves, as they once had. Now it’d be counterproductive. Let the people of Kyoto see them—let them talk among themselves about the dragon riders, and be fearful, or excited. Let them become legend; there’s power in that. The power of myth.

 **Follow me,** says Kageyama from ahead. Hinata surges forward to fly alongside him, instead, and sees his head turn. **Dumbass.**

The snow starts up again as they get into the hills, but Kageyama doesn’t say anything about turning back. So they fly through the white mess, the flakes and ice melting against the dragons’ scales, and the fiery creatures keep them warm, too. Hinata smiles into the cloth of his mask.

The dragons take them into the hills, and they settle on the outcrop of a cliff, shielded from the weather by a shallow cave. They strip off the damp, cold outer layers of their clothes and lay them out to dry in the bubble of warmth created by Kinboshi and Haizora’s presence in such a small space. Hinata can barely make out the dark lines of Kyoto’s buildings and streets through the snow. He sits cross-legged a few feet from the ledge and watches it come down—it’s astounding, he really has never seen anything like it. After a moment he feels Kageyama settle into the space beside him.

“It looks so different from back home, doesn’t it?”

Kageyama shrugs. “It never snowed like this there.”

“I like it,” Hinata decides, nodding to himself. He likes Kyoto. It has frightened and frustrated him but—so has Kageyama, and look how that worked out.

“We have to go back eventually.”

Hinata shuts his eyes but the whiteout presses even against his lids. “Eventually…”

“Soon.” Kageyama clears his throat, and Hinata turns to look at him. “We’ve waited too long.”

“I know,” says Hinata weakly. He thinks about his sister—he thinks about her often, but is it often enough? There has been so much else to think about, these past few months. It makes him sick with guilt every time he remembers. _Have I been selfish?_

“We have so little time and so much to do,” Kageyama says, mostly to himself, some genuine irritation shining through. “We’ve got to go back to Karasuno and then get back to the mainland with plenty of time to help Oikawa-san. I’m sure he will need us after the new decrees go through.” Hinata scoots toward him, winds his fingers into the excess of Kageyama’s sleeve.

“Maybe they’ll be able to help us convince people about dragons.”

“That’s providing they’re not all dead because they didn’t fight back.” Kageyama ducks his head sheepishly when he spots the way this comment affects Hinata. _Natsu._ The last letter they’d had from Sugawara-san only relayed that their winter rations had arrived safely, and the village was in the swing of preparations for another attack. Then, nothing, for weeks. Kageyama had some correspondence dictated, asking for news and promising their return: nothing still.

“I think they’re okay.” His voice cracks when he says it, but he thinks surely he would _feel_ it, if something truly bad happened. _That’s childish_ , says a corrective voice in his head. He doesn’t know when he started hearing this voice, but somewhere in the midst of the Nekoma incident he had adapted, evolved. Realized the world would never live up to his expectations.

Kageyama reaches out and places a hesitant hand on his shoulder. Trying to be reassuring, Hinata thinks. The look on his face is like, _How am I doing?_ Hinata finds his soutai’s fleeting awkwardness more reassuring than the touch. He smiles.

“I guess there’s only one way to find out!”

Kageyama nods his agreement. “Soon,” he says. “Soon we’ll go back.”

* * *

 _What_ _are you not talking about?_

There are no secrets in soutai, Kageyama had once told himself. More than there being no point in concealing from your soutai, there’s no real possibility of it—sooner or later, they are going to find out.

But of course, if anyone could find a way around this, it would be Hinata. He is as surprising as ever, unpredictable, and as much as it bothers Kageyama, a part of him gets breathless thinking that Hinata could find it in himself to dance away from honesty as he is. It’s enticing. It wouldn’t be enticing, probably, if Kageyama weren’t disgustingly, headily in love with him; but he is, and so even the agony of being toyed with makes him swoon.

He doesn’t know what it is, but he knows when it started. About a week after their return to Kyoto, Hinata had insisted on hand-delivering some letter in the city—he got Oikawa himself to read him the address and give directions, and Kageyama went along like a frowning shadow, nervous at the idea of Hinata meeting strangers alone in the city.

When they arrived at the building, Hinata forcefully told Kageyama that he should stay outside—that he was not a _child_ and did not need to be _babysat_ —if he needed help, he would call for it.

So Kageyama stood there for about ten minutes in the street, tapping his foot and avoiding eye contact with pedestrians. Then Hinata emerged and he was… white as a sheet.

“This isn’t the right place,” he spluttered, the letter clutched to his chest.

“What?”

“Wrong address!” And Hinata started scampering back to the palace, nearly leaving Kageyama in his dust.

No matter how aggressively or tenderly Kageyama pressed him, he would not answer questions about what he had seen in the strange building. He’d never known Hinata to be so tight-lipped, and so Kageyama began to suspect that perhaps Hinata didn’t really have the words for whatever had made such an impression on him. It would explain the way his mouth just sort of… hung open uselessly when asked about it, and why his thoughts were always so dark but indecipherable.

Kageyama has never been someone who must know secrets—most of the time he can’t be bothered to care about what doesn’t affect him. And he might have let this go, put it behind them, but it _did_ affect him. Or he thinks it did, it must have been that… something had slipped into this fledging phase of his and Hinata’s relationship, a poison.

Kageyama can feel it when they lie together, Hinata squirming away from him, always keeping a little distance; when they kiss and, no matter how careful and gentle Kageyama is in his caresses, Hinata always cuts them short; a touch on the cheek or arm is permissible but should his hands wander to hips or legs, no matter how natural or unintended the gesture, he’s scolded by Hinata’s rebuff.

It puzzles him, because surely the touches and the kisses and the feeling of their arms wrapping around one another as they fall asleep, the sensation is just as wonderful for Hinata. But now Kageyama thinks, perhaps it isn’t. Maybe he is wrong for looking at Hinata the way he does, and for wanting to touch and be close to him—and for the undercurrent of possibilities touching and closeness offers, faintly acknowledged at the back of his mind. If this is wrong, will it ever go away? Will he ever stop wanting what he wants? He sort of hopes they might get to live a long time together. He wants to be satisfied in that life, if they get it.

When they arrive back at the palace after their flight in the hills, they shed their snow-soaked clothes in the quiet of Kageyama’s room, lit just by the fire in the hearth. With the temperature they’re sleeping in all the clothing they can manage, but Kageyama finds that his clothes are wet down to the second layer, and he has to rummage through his belonging to find adequate sleepwear.

He hears a whimper from behind him, and glances over to see Hinata struggling out of his wet kimono, a hand pressed against his side.

“Is it hurting?”

“Just—the cold makes it stiff, I think…”

Kageyama tugs on his last layer and goes to help; he pushes the wet linen off Hinata’s shoulders, careful not to let his hands linger too long on his bare skin. Hinata stares the floor between them and says nothing. When the kimono is off, he’s naked but for his underwear; he shivers, and the tremor that travels down his body makes it difficult not to look—how narrow and bony he is, but with more fat and muscle to him now than Kageyama can remember. This is probably the best he’s eaten and the fittest he’s been in his life, and it shows. Even the star-shaped scar stretching across the left side of his abdomen is as beautiful as it is jarring.

Hinata lifts his chin, catching Kageyama’s gaze, his mouth hanging open—and Kageyama’s face suddenly burns. He quickly grabs the fresh clothes from the bed and starts helping Hinata dress, pointedly not allowing his eyes to linger on anything but the cloth.

“I didn’t know it was still giving you trouble,” he murmurs.

“It isn’t, really. It’s not like I can feel the skin or anything.”

“You can’t?” Kageyama can’t help himself: he reaches down and, pushing aside the kimono, brushes his thumb over the scar.

Hinata gasps and shoves his hand away.

“Sorry,” Kageyama is saying. “Sorry, I thought—I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine!” Hinata steps away from him, determined to finish dressing himself.

“If it hurt—”

“It didn’t! It didn’t hurt,” says Hinata shrilly, shaking his head. “It just felt weird, it’s probably a soutai thing. Don’t mind!”

“Okay.”

He watches Hinata start pulling on the rest of his dry clothes with a determined grimace, and he’s struck with the urge to _say_ something. But he doesn’t know what, doesn’t have any words, just this formless impulse—the same problem Hinata had answering his question, he gets in asking it. He turns and returns to his side of the room and finishes dressing himself. When they lie down to sleep that night, the gap Hinata leaves between them is wider than usual.

* * *

Iwaizumi Hajime is not a politician.

And he’s never wanted to be one. Growing up, he saw politics everywhere, everyday. He saw it in the way they were taught to think and what they were lead to believe about their lives, what it all meant, it was all politics. His father was advisor to the shogun, too; whenever they were together, it wasn’t praises or kind regard but politics that dripped from his father’s tongue.

He had always favored the other aspect of his upbringing: swords, ironically, were safer. Less fickle. He prefers defeating his enemies to winning their affections.

Oikawa, funnily enough, had always been rather secure in both outlets. As a young teenager, watching the boy who had been his friend grow into the man who would be his master, he had wondered what it was he could offer to someone like Oikawa. His official duties were protection and advice but, why protect someone who can better protect himself? Why advise him when he has the insight to lead a generation?

He realized what it is Oikawa needs from him when he was sixteen: On a late night he had stumbled on the other boy in the training building, working with his katana. He’d been at it for hours, and the palms of his hands were rubbed raw; but, he explained in a frenzy, his swordmaster had made a comment about his passes. If he didn’t correct the problem, his father would surely hear of it, and then the emperor might hear of it. He could not be surpassed by one of the other students. _So you understand, Iwa-chan!_ he had said, almost laughing, his eyes blown wide and frantic. _I must keep practicing_.

And Hajime knew: Make sure he sleeps. Make sure he eats. See that he wraps his hands and lets his muscles rest. Some talents are so large they gnaw at their containers, but Iwaizumi would not let Oikawa be consumed by his own potential.

On maybe their third or fourth night together, at eighteen, he remembers Tooru had giggled into his ear: “What if it was _our_ country? They wouldn’t even know.”

“No,” Hajime had muttered. “It’s your country. Just let me live in it.” Power and politics, he wants none of that. He only looks to keep playing with swords, and to stay with Tooru, in the happy niche they’d carved against the odds built by their culture and circumstances. He thinks he could even stand Tooru’s having a wife later on, if the emperor pressed it, providing it didn’t pull them apart completely. Nothing could truly separate them, after all: they were born partners.

And Iwaizumi knows his place in that partnership rides on being the reality check.

On a snowy morning, he wakes Oikawa by stripping the covers off his bed. He waits about ten seconds, until brown eyes flutter open beneath him.

“It’s freezing…”

“I had breakfast with Kageyama.”

“How nice for you both. May I have my blanket?”

Iwaizumi dumps it back onto the bed, half onto Oikawa’s head. By the time he’s worked his way out from under it, his hair is mussed and he’s disgruntled.

“So was it _not_ a nice breakfast?”

Iwaizumi crouches beside the bed. Too worked up to sit. “He says you’re planning to introduce a decree banning dragon killing for everything that’s not immediate self-defense.”

Oikawa primly pats down his messy hair, and gives a little shrug. “That’s correct.”

“You know what that’s going to do to every prefecture beyond the capital, don’t you?”

Oikawa’s brow lifts prettily. “Iwa-chan, weighing in on legislative matters? How novel of you. Just like your father.”

“You’re seriously crazy. You’re going to incite a rebellion. People will be slaughtering every dragon they can find.”

Iwaizumi gets a blank-faced look, and then Oikawa simply says, “I can’t address your concerns until I’ve had my tea.”

Iwaizumi grunts and straightens up, and marches out wordlessly. Half an hour later he returns, and the bed has been replaced with a table, where Oikawa sits with a pot of tea, two cups, and his chin on his fist.

Iwaizumi settles in across from him, sans invitation. The little smile on Oikawa’s lips is invitation enough. “You’ve got to eat something. Tea isn’t a meal.”

“I’ll eat later. You wanted to talk about dragons?”

“You’ve been shogun for four months. People don’t know what to think of you.” Iwaizumi sits forward. “There are bushi making piles of money killing these things. They’re powerful, and they won’t be happy.”

“Those are exactly the sort of people we’re targeting.” Oikawa pulls the cups toward him and begins pouring their tea. “Inevitably before rebelling they’ll come here, to Kyoto, to protest to me personally. At which point I will have their attention to discuss the invasion. These are the samurai we want guarding our shores, after all.”

“And what, you just wave this other conflict in their faces and expect them to forget their dragons?”

“No.” Oikawa neatly pushes a steaming cup toward him. “I explain that if they fight for me, we can reconsider the ban once the war is over.”

Iwaizumi exhales. He had expected it might be something like this. “Kageyama didn’t mention that part of the plan,” he sighs, even though he knows what Tooru will say in reply.

“That’s because Tobio isn’t aware of this caveat.” Iwaizumi knows the look he’s giving is a hard one, demanding, and Oikawa’s eyes fly to the ceiling. “Look, I’m trying to save this country from conquerers who’ve already taken half the continent. I can’t say I care what these samurai do after they’ve kept the Mongols at bay. Tobio knows that’s the only reason I’ve agreed to this.”

“He trusts you.”

“I never said that was a smart idea, on his part,” Oikawa snaps. He always gets like this, defensive, when Iwaizumi expresses disappointment in him. _You aren’t so shrewd that this comes easily._ Hajime has always regretted Kageyama’s history in their house, and through his teaching he’s grown fond of Hinata too, of his enthusiasm and hunger. He doesn’t want to be there when the two of them discover the truth of Oikawa’s plan, but he will be, most likely. He’ll have to see their faces. Hinata will probably look at him, helplessly, saying— _but you promised?_

He sighs. Steam curls off the top of his tea. “You don’t see any way of stopping the killings like they want?”

“It would take a miracle,” says Oikawa quietly. “You know I can’t wait around for one of those.”

“I was sort of pleased to think we might have them on our side for the rest of your reign. They’re not exactly powerless.” He looks Tooru straight in the eye, and sees a tick in his smooth jaw. “What happens when they turn on you?”

Oikawa’s eyes roll back again. There’s no knowing what he’s thinking when he gets all quiet and pensive like this, but it’s likely something conniving and (Hajime can admit this) devastatingly clever. He lifts his cup to his lips, and exhales in a puff.

“Seems like a plan,” Iwaizumi snorts, derisive.

“Iwa-chan,” he sighs. “They’re two boys. So what if they’ve got... pets?”

Iwaizumi grimaces. “Not your average house cats.” Even after all these months, he still finds himself nervous around the creatures. Doesn’t go to that part of the stable, declines Hinata’s proffered flying lessons. “I have a feeling about them.”

Oikawa’s chin is back on his fist. “And what are you feeling?”

“That there’s... I think the whole might be more than the sum of its parts.” This is another thing he can offer Oikawa, in their partnership: a good gut, that lets him see in fuller color. He has always had an eye for character, and a strong moral lead. Another reason to stay out of politics—but it has never hurt Oikawa’s calculating mind to hear another side, something more instinct than opinion or finding. That’s what makes him not a politician but a leader. A little bit of heart.

Not that now, while they’re facing a crisis, is the time for Oikawa to listen to Iwaizumi’s heart. Hajime gets it. He can see in the way Oikawa’s looking at him, with his lip between his teeth, and his brows gathered in contemplation and concern—he can see that he needs to get it. There’s a time and a place for Iwaizumi’s particular brand of advice, and this isn’t it.

He’s not one to feel shame very acutely, but he lets his eyes drop to the tabletop. He wonders if he should summon back the anger he felt when he first arrived to rouse Oikawa.

“I’m the shogun of Japan.” Oikawa stands, draws Iwaizumi from his brooding. “Let them come for me if they like. Whatever they are.” Iwaizumi knows him well enough to know the resolve in his voice is more _tomorrow’s problem_ than a declaration of confidence. He’s prioritizing. Iwaizumi can’t blame him for this. He feels... better, maybe. Even though it doesn’t change things for Hinata and Kageyama.

He decides that reality has been checked, and allows himself a sip of tea; its warmth slips down his throat. Sometimes he forgets how cold it can be this time of year, really, until he’s felt the heat. “I’d enjoy watching Kageyama kick your ass.”

Oikawa gasps in mock offense—or maybe it’s not all mock, hard to say. “You’re an absolutely terrible excuse for a bodyguard.”

“I’m not your _bodyguard._ ”

“Everyone knows you’re my bodyguard. Even just in spirit.” It takes Iwaizumi a moment to hear the play on words, and when the realization dawns on his face, Oikawa laughs. “Delightful!”

“You’re a delightful ass.”

Oikawa keeps laughing—he laughs all the way through their tea, pulling on his silks as he goes, and when he buries his face in kimonos it sounds not unlike he’s drowning.

* * *

The second time Hinata tries to deliver Yachi’s letter, it works out considerably better than the first. He doesn’t know what it was, that first attempt—afraid of a wrong turn, he had followed Oikawa-san’s directions so closely, muttering them to himself as he went. He doesn’t understand what could have gone wrong, and lead him to... the place where he ended up. But he tries not to think too hard on it. Or to think about it at all.

For his next outing, he gets a new set of directions, and has the friendly palace clerk who reads him the address draw the route out on a parchment map, so he absolutely can’t be misdirected. And he banishes Kageyama from coming along—mostly because he knows that the first time they tried this _will_ come up if they go together again, and he is sick of trying to talk about it, and he’s sick of being asked questions he doesn’t know how to answer. _It doesn’t matter_ , he has screamed, over and over, inside his head. Kageyama has surely heard him by now. Maybe if he says it enough, it’ll become true. ( _Childish. Again._ )

It is the middle of fall and he can’t wait for it to get cold; he doesn’t know that in  a few months he’ll be wishing winter had never come, and wading through snow drifts up to his waist.

For now, the summer’s heat is broken, the weather has gotten cool and temperate and lovely. Yachi’s letter is worn and dirty and the neat seal has partly cracked, but he clutches it to his chest as he darts through the streets, through crowds and around carts and clusters of children, stopping on every corner to consult his map.

He’s relieved to find that the building at which he eventually arrives isn’t the same one as before: where that had been, from the outside, some kind of inn, this is clearly a person’s home. A wealthy person, if he had to guess, but then again, all the houses in Kyoto look like mansions to him. It has a broad gate and it takes him a long time to find the bell hanging nearby, and even longer to jump high enough that he can pull the cord. Its ring is louder than he expected, and he glances around to see if he’d disturbed anyone, but this is a quieter side street. He’s alone.

He can hear a door slide open somewhere on the other side of the gate, and so he waits. It has been a long time since Hitoka entrusted this task to him, and much has happened, and he’s terribly concerned with the task of getting to the _correct_ place—amidst all this commotion he has hardly thought of what will happen when he comes face-to-face with his friend’s... mother, hadn’t she said? But he’s certainly thinking about it _now_. Hitoka had never even explained why her mother lived on the mainland while Yachi herself, an orphan in everything but name, had been sent to Karasuno. Hinata feels himself start to crunch the letter in his fists, then quickly catches himself and smooths it out again.

The gate rolls open about a foot and Hinata jumps. There’s a face staring out at him but it’s—not a woman’s face. It’s a man, and he wears glasses, like Takeda-san or Tsukishima. Huh.

“Who are you?” he says, sounding as confused to see Hinata as Hinata is to see him.

“Um, I have a letter?”

“A letter for who?”

“For...” He has to glance down at the letter to remember, even though he can’t read it. “Yachi Madoka! Does she live here?”

The man blinks, and slides the gate open a little further. Hinata resists the impulse to leap back defensively. “She does.”

“I’m a friend of her daughter’s!”

“Her daughter,” the man echoes. Hinata has no idea what to make of his expression, but then the man is stepping aside, revealing a sliver of the inner courtyard. “Come in.”

Hinata obeys.  He’s thinking he was right about Yachi’s mother being rich: she’s got a servant, and this is not a poor courtyard. To his untrained eye, it’s just as lovely as the gardens he’s seen around the palace. And he’s growing increasingly confused... if Yachi’s mother is so fortunate, why not let her daughter live here? His friend had not grown up so much better off than Hinata himself, and he _knows_ his own situation sets a low bar. _Maybe she’s like Kageyama?_ he thinks. _A secret lady..._ Which would mean he’s been unknowingly surrounded by royalty for his entire childhood! It’s a wonder he didn’t turn out more regal.

The man leads him into the house; as they’re walking he points to himself and says, “Reiji.” Hinata stares at him.

“That’s your name?”

“Uh, yes.”

_I hope Yacchan’s mother is less awkward than this guy._

The interior of the building rivals the exterior, and one thing Hinata notices that he isn’t used to: there’s lots of _stuff_. Little statues in alcoves, and mirrors, and pieces of furniture that he’s never seen before. Some of it just looks expensive, but other items don’t even seem Japanese. He stops to stare at a velvet-lined box on a table, where sits a… metal circle, with directions written on its face, and two needles that look like they might spin around. Weird. Then Reiji-san clears his throat, and Hinata scurries after him.

They halt in a corridor. “Yachi-san,” says Reiji-san loudly, to a door. “You have a letter.” He glances at Hinata. “It’s a special delivery.”

He hears a woman’s voice saying something, but it’s muffled. Reiji gives him a sort of apologetic look, shrugs, and opens the door for him.

If he’d thought the hallways held lots of stuff—this room is something else. It’s stacked with... things, things he doesn’t have words for, things that frighten him. There are stuffed creatures and ornate chests and tall ticking wooden boxes with numbered faces, there are bolts of richly dyed silk and linen, there is _gold_. Gold jewelry, gold plates, gold figures that look like gods, but not gods he’s ever known. It must be a large room, to fit all these things, but Hinata has trouble finding a path into it. Every bit of space is occupied, and every item looks like it’s worth more than the life of a peasant from a rural island. Naturally, he’s terrified to touch anything.

Almost lost in all this mess is a small table at the center of the room, where a blonde woman sits with a neat set of scales, cleaning gems.

He had expected her to be older, he realizes. But Hitoka’s mother, Yachi Madoka, is a young woman. She is dressed immaculately, and like someone who could afford all this. 

She looks like Hitoka, he realizes, but her demeanor is totally different. He’s never felt anything but gentility and kindness radiating off his childhood friend; conversely, Madoka seems... hard. She doesn’t look like she wants to hear whatever it is Hinata has to say.

He is panicking a little, he realizes.

(When he panics nowadays, it’s not quite as bad as it used to be. His knees only tremble a little, and the nausea is manageable. It’s probably only because he’s known _real_ trouble now, but still, he’s proud of that.)

He hears the door slide shut behind him. Yachi Madoka’s eyes go from the ruby in her hand to him, standing small and with a worn envelope held tenderly in his palms, and he hopes she isn’t drawing a comparison. He wouldn’t look so good in it.

“You are?” she says. Maybe she doesn’t sound mean?

“Hinata Shouyou.” He bows deeply. He assumes that’s the appropriate greeting.

Her gaze goes back to the gem, wiping it with a cloth. “Who’s Hinata Shouyou?” Okay, she sounds a little mean.

“I’m a friend of your daughter’s!” Her hands stop moving, but he doesn’t notice, because he’s navigating his way toward her table with the letter raised above his head. “I brought this here for you, from her, all the way from Karasuno.”

He arrives at the table and thrusts the letter toward Yachi’s mother; he smiles, and he expects her to smile back, but instead she’s looking at the paper in his hand with a strange expression. Less hard than before, maybe a little... nervous? Hinata frowns. She sighs, and plucks it from his fingers.

“Thank you.”

He watches her place the letter on the table, sliding it away from her workspace, and return to her gems once again.

“You aren’t going to read it?”

Yachi Madoka freezes, and lifts her head to stare at him. _You shouldn’t have said that_ , a knowing voice declares. Such genius hindsight.

“I will read it when I am ready,” she says, slowly, as if she did not expect him to understand. Which—is fair, because he doesn’t understand.

“Aren’t you excited to get a letter from your daughter?” It makes no sense for a mother, for a parent, to be like this. Hinata has always thought that the richer you are, the more happy your family should be; all his family’s troubles came from being poor, after all. Even with all he knows about Kageyama’s life—it’s a fluke, he assumes. Family is good. Mothers are good. And he misses his.

“Of course,” she says, after a pause.

“But you don’t want to read it now?”

“Right now I am working. Hitoka would understand.”

Perhaps it’s the stress of this fragile moment in history he’s occupying, or the shock and confusion of recent discoveries, or the difficulty of his training, or the accumulation of these factors, but just then, something in Hinata snaps. He feels it break, a tiny give in his chest, but with it goes whatever remained of his filter. Where would he be now if he didn’t ask questions? Kinboshi would be dead. He’d be a murderer, or a resigned coward. “Why doesn’t Hitoka just live here with you? You have lots of room and clearly you can support her. She doesn’t even have her own house on Karasuno, and you...” He looks around, at all this, and where before he didn’t want to touch anything, now he wants to start pushing things over.

Yachi Madoka stares at him, but he isn’t scared of her anymore. Just angry. “What did you say your name was?”

“Hinata Shouyou. Do you even write her back? I’ve never seen her get a letter from you.”

With a deep breath, she sets down the ruby, swaddling it carefully in the cloth. “Do you know what I do, Hinata Shouyou?”

Hinata doesn’t really _care_ what it is she does, so he just gestures loosely to the room around them. “This?”

“I collect and sell antiquities from around the world.” He suddenly feels Yachi Madoka’s eyes sliding down him, assessing him. Sizing him up but, that always makes him nervous. He doesn’t like to be judged by size. “I spend half my year, sometimes more, in China for my work. I deal with incredibly precious things. Some people would take them from me by force.” And finally she looks up at him. “Hitoka is illegitimate, and an easy target. _That_ is why I chose to send her away. One day she’ll come join me here, when she’s ready.”

“She’s ready _now_ ,” says Hinata on reflex, even though he doesn’t know if that’s even something Yacchan would want. “She’s a great girl, really smart, and—and I’ve trusted her with some really important stuff!”

“And what are your prospects?”

This question... “What?”

“Do you have land? Are you making money? Those are fine clothes,” she remarks lightly.

“I... work for the shogun,” he says, not knowing how else to explain it. No one has ever asked him about his _prospects_ before.

“You seem to care for my daughter.”

“Of course I care for her, she’s wonderful!”

“Then you can marry her.”

Hinata opens his mouth, then closes it, then opens it again. “Excuse me?”

Yachi Madoka is back to her work now, wrapping her stones in silk, as if... as if that _settled it_. “That’s what you came here to tell me, isn’t it? That’s why you’re harassing me? You want her hand.”

Oh no.

All he manages to get out is, “Nnnnnn.” 

This doesn’t seem to get his point across.

“You’ll make very short children,” says Yachi Madoka, sounding disappointed but resigned to the fact. Hinata turns around, searching for help, but oh, it’s just him and her, isn’t it? “A child is a child, I suppose. It’s better than nothing.”

“Not marriage,” he squeaks. “I just wanted you to be nice to her! I’m already—” He catches himself. _You aren’t married to Kageyama. What?_

Yachi Madoka is now glaring at him, which—okay, yes, he is scared of her again. “Nice? You think I’m not being nice?”

“Well, it’s just, I think... I think she could be really helpful to you in your career—” His face is red. It is _so_ red. “I don’t—uh—I don’t see why you wouldn’t want to have her here! I just wanted to tell you how great she is, because you haven’t gotten to see her grow up like I have.” (And she’s still alive. She’s totally, definitely, 100% still alive.)

Yachi’s mother watches him for a long moment, an equation running behind her eyes. _She’s never even considered that Hitoka-chan could be more than a liability_. Her eyes go to the letter, sitting far away from her on the table, where she had exiled it.

She reaches out and pulls it closer.

Then she stops—she’s remembered Hinata is still there. “It was nice meeting you. Please leave my house now.”

He listens, picking his way through all the treasures back to the door. And he goes back to the palace on that sunny fall day, telling himself over his anxiety, _I did something good. I did something good._

* * *

It's at Kageyama’s insistence that Hinata is allowed to attend the decree-signing ceremony.

He can tell this makes his soutai, who has never been permitted into the legislative sanctum of the shogun’s chambers, nervous. Hinata quite literally shakes in his boots as they walk to the building together. But he ought to be there for it; no one is questioning that. This wouldn’t have happened without him. It’s his victory more than anyone else’s, Kageyama couldn’t imagine if he weren’t there to witness it.

He thinks maybe he ought to feel some kind of shift in the air, once it happens, once Oikawa’s pen scratches over paper, once it’s devastatingly _real_.

“There we are,” Oikawa murmurs, sitting back to peer at the document. The stewards and statesmen that make up his inner circle talk among themselves. Iwaizumi-san stands in silence, head bowed. Maybe he’s thinking about the enforcement that will be required to make this decree more than just a piece of paper. Kageyama has thought about that a lot.

Hinata’s shoulders are shaking and Kageyama, standing just behind him, folds his hand around one. Hinata turns and smiles at him, and Kageyama smiles back.

**We did it.**

_We,_ Kageyama echoes to himself. Hinata is so generous, sometimes. Kageyama can hardly understand it.

When they get back to their quarters that evening, after eating far too much at the post-signing festivities, he realizes he is a little drunk, and Hinata is more than a little drunk. Sake… he can’t even remember who’d offered it to them. He should have asked more questions.

His room is dark and silent and he exhales as he falls back onto the bed. He’s aware of Hinata moving in some other part of the room, his breathing rapid and shallow. At dinner his cheeks had this pink flush, and he’d grinned at Kageyama across the feast, licking salt from his lips.

Faintly Kageyama thinks about packing. How much to take with them to Karasuno. He roughly tugs his hair from its knot, lets it fan across the pillow.

He might have dozed off, his eyes are falling closed, and then there is this warm weight on his hips. He opens his eyes to see a darkened figure straddling him. “Hina—”

Hinata eats up his own name with a hard kiss, his lips rough and searching, and he presses into Kageyama with the whole force of his body, their arms tangling as Kageyama tries to reciprocate or hold him off—he can’t tell which, likely a little bit of both, only that he’s touching back. Hinata’s movements are frantic and aggressive; his fingers claw at Kageyama, any hold they can get on him; his hips keep twitching but struggle for purchase or friction. He’s desperate and he whines under his breath and he doesn’t taste like himself.

But it feels good. And it feels confusing. Kageyama’s head swims, sake and soutai. He gets flashes of images from Hinata’s mind, unfamiliar pictures, a dark interior, strange sounds. A vague awareness of some new way they might be together and a longing for it, but nothing more specific than that.

He knows he is reacting—his body is reacting. He does want… maybe not like this, but he wants it.

That must be why Hinata lurches off of him, so suddenly: he’d felt it and, wheezing, Kageyama rolls away onto his stomach. _Shame_. He buries his face in the mattress. From the other side of the bed there’s the sound of Hinata gasping for air—and then a sharper gasp, and a hot spike in the pit of Kageyama’s stomach. That was psychic, he would know Hinata’s heat anywhere, but the spike has a potency he hasn’t felt before. It scares him a little bit.

They’ve accomplished so much together—it is appalling that _this_ should be especially difficult, of all things.

They lie with their backs to one another until their breathing evens out, eventually falling in tandem. He hears Hinata speak in a tiny tearful voice: “I want to go home… I want to go home.”

So two days later they are leaving Kyoto just as the sun comes up.

Iwaizumi is the only one there to see them off. Oikawa, presumably, has yet to rise, and the handful of servants up this early are busy with morning chores. There’s a marked difference between this and the party that saw them off when they left Karasuno to come here. With that realization, Kageyama feels slightly better about going home. The people here aren’t his family, not really, no matter how many childhood memories hide in the nooks and crannies of the palace.

“We’ll expect you back in a few weeks,” says Iwaizumi, watching them mount up at a safe distance.

“Good luck with the decree,” Kageyama tells him. Hinata nods along.

“Yeah, good luck, sensei!”

Iwaizumi looks at them for a beat, and forces a smile. His quietness makes Kageyama uneasy. “Be safe,” he says, in a low voice. His eyes go from Kageyama to Hinata. “Be smart.”

“Very smart, sensei,” says Hinata, grinning.

“And let your body rest.”

“Yes, sensei!”

With that Iwaizumi gives them a final nod, and steps back. They tug up their masks over their noses and ears: the ride to Karasuno is long and the wind will be harsh. Kageyama lays a hand against Haizora’s neck. _It’s time_.

The sky over Kyoto is clear, for a winter day. You can see how much snow remains from the last storm. The farms beyond the city have disappeared, blanketed in white.

They fly low but the cold is bad enough that they have to land before dark and split up the trip into two days. They stop over in an inn, leaving the dragons in the hills for the night. The bed is only big enough for one, so Kageyama sleeps on the floor. They haven’t talked about what happened two nights before, except for a blurted apology from Hinata over their breakfast that morning. Kageyama had just shrugged in reply. There are more important things to worry about, he wants to believe.

The next day, the sight of Karasuno growing larger, as if it rises from the sea floor, fills him with inexplicable emotion. He hadn’t realized the depth of his attachment to the island—he can hear Hinata, surging slightly ahead of him, thinking, **We’re home! We’re home.** His stomach lurches at the thought of what they could find when they land.

In actuality, he gets his first signs of life before they touch down: as they get closer to the island, there’s a blur of white movement over the area Kageyama knows is the village.

_What’s that?_

**I can’t tell** , Hinata complains.

Kageyama deviates slightly from their course toward the beach, flying along the edge of the island until he can get a better look. The white thing has stopped moving and hovers over the village, flapping its… wings.

 _A dragon_.

He can hear Hinata’s heart pounding, in his own chest. **Have they—**

 _It’s not attacking_ —

Kageyama senses Hinata turning Kinboshi, ready to fly straight at the white dragon, consumed by panic and rage. He’s thinking of his sister.

_Stop! We land, we’re not going to startle it!_

It’s a struggle for Hinata to whip back around and chase him toward the beach, like their original plan, but he does it. Fucking dumbass.

They hit the sand and Kageyama is leaping off Haizora, roaring at the top of his lungs. “What the fuck are you thinking, charging like that?”

Shoving his mask down around his neck, he stomps toward Hinata across the beach and Hinata stomps right toward him too, both of them red-faced and shouting.

“They’ve probably taken the whole village!”

“Have you not learned a single fucking thing?”

“We need to _protect_ them—”

“Killing dragons is illegal now, because of _you_!” Hinata stumbles back from him, astonished. “What are you doing, attacking on sight? Making assumptions?”

He knows he’s hit a nerve, and that Hinata is confused, and that maybe the anger in his voice has to do with more than just this one stupid, split-second decision from his soutai. But he’s right, too: everything they’ve worked for rests on Hinata’s commitment to his mission. They can’t turn hypocrite now, no matter what awaits them at the end of the village path.

Hinata stares at the gap in the trees along the shore, the one that will lead them to answers. He inhales deeply. “We’ve been gone way too long. We should have come back… so much sooner.”

“I know,” says Kageyama heavily.

“What if we got Japan but sacrificed Karasuno?”

“I never expected to come out of this without making any sacrifices.”

Hinata turns back to him, then steps forward, and wraps his arms around Kageyama’s chest. This is the first time they’ve embraced so simply in forever, it feels like; with a fragment of hesitation, Kageyama presses his face into Hinata’s hair. It tickles his nose and he sneezes, lightly. Hinata looks up into his face and he’s biting back a giggle. With the interlude of silliness, they’ve almost forgotten what they’re about to do.

“Kageyama-kun?”

Hinata’s lips don’t move but that was most certainly a human voice in his ear.

“Hinata-kun!”

They pull apart and turn in the same motion, to see Yachi Hitoka coming down the beach with a huge smile on her face, very much alive, and—with the white dragon from before trailing her obediently.

“Welcome home!”

* * *

They’ve been tracking the same Kuma-wani for a week now. Bokuto-san is staring to get bored.

When they settle down that night, to camp in the craggy cliffs along Honshu’s northwestern coast, Akaashi calmly tries to explain that—as a corps of professional dragon fighting bushi—they might need to have a little patience. The reward placed on this particular Kuma-wani, by the local lord, is the largest purse they’ve ever chased. It isn’t going to be easy.

“Yeah, but I wanted it to be fun hard, not boring hard.” Bokuto looks to Komi, who nods in agreement. Akaashi glances around their campfire, and yes, that’s definitely boredom which greets him. Yukie has fallen asleep on Kaori’s shoulder. “Are we at least close to finding it?” says Bokuto, bumping his fists against his knees. “How long ’til we catch up with it?”

Akaashi sighs. “I don’t think you understand how tracking works, Bokuto-san.”

“What, can’t you estimate based on how, uh, fresh the tracks are?”

“The tracks have been the same age all week. We aren’t making any ground.”

In truth, Akaashi doesn’t even understand what this lord wants with the dragon. From what Akaashi has seen, it’s a frightened creature, consistently avoiding human settlements. The fresh snowfall has eased the process of trailing the Kuma-wani, yes, but it’s also led them out here, to the freezing middle of nowhere. Even bundled in hides as they are, the cold is dangerous, and there isn’t a town for miles to shelter them.

“Grah!” Bokuto throws back his head, and his voice echoes off the cliffs around them. The whiteness of his breath when he shouts is just visible in the dark. Akaashi winces. “We’re too slow. There’s too many of us and we don’t move fast enough.”

“You can leave some of us behind,” Kaori offers sleepily.

“Then you lose out on the purse!”

“Yeah, but you’re dead if you try to take on a Kuma-wani alone, so who’s really losing out?”

Bokuto pulls a face, but he looks to Akaashi, too, with genuine concern in it. A big frightened puppy. Not worried about dying, more about… the future. Bokuto-san might have his moments of cluelessness, but he’s not stupid. He knows they need to catch this dragon. He sticks his hand through his hair, spiking it at a new, even stranger angle. Akaashi considers reminding him that if he doesn’t cover his head, he’ll catch cold.

Somewhere out in the darkness, there’s a sharp noise. A whistle.

They stiffen at once, and Bokuto and Akaashi are first on their feet, Bokuto with his axe in the air.

“What’s that?” murmurs Komi.

 _Not a dragon_ , Akaashi knows. That was a human sound. He carefully unsheathes his tanto, scanning the shadowy area just outside the bubble of light created by the fire. The noise had echoed, but who knows how fast whatever it was had moved, they could be approached at any moment. For a minute the only sound is the group’s breathing, and the crackle of the flames, and the distant winds of winter out on the sea.

He finally sees it: a shadowy figure moving at them from the southeast. “Shit,” mutters Bokuto, stepping out of their circle, toward the darkness.

“Hello, boys!”

Akaashi shuts his eyes.

“ _Tanaka-san_?” squeals Bokuto. “Ah, fuck!” Tanaka Saeko emerges into the firelight, her laughter booming. “What’re you doing? How’d you find us?” He wheels around to Akaashi, frantic. “Is she tracking the Kuma-wani? That’d be the third purse she’s stolen from us in a year!”

Akaashi raises his hands. He doesn’t see how Bokuto expects him to know these things.

“I _was_ tracking the Kuma-wani,” says Saeko, inviting herself to their fire. Pretty much everyone scatters when she gets close, except the girls, who are now wide-awake and grinning. “Until I got word from Yui in Kyoto... I’d heard you guys were after it too, so I thought I’d come break the news.”

“The news?” Akaashi echoes. Saeko’s mouth twists unpleasantly. In all their interactions with her and Michimiya, he has always known Saeko to smile. A big, wolfish one, too. Now her expression... it’s barely a smirk. So whatever news she’s got, he can’t imagine it’s good.

Bokuto has collapsed beside the fire and is hunched over, mumbling a string of complaints. “I haven’t got any other leads this whole winter... the money from those Kiyohimes in Edo won’t last forever... what are they going to say about us? No more Bokuto the Great! No more!”

Saeko clears her throat. “I’m telling you this as colleagues. I know we’ve been competitors, but—we’ve got the same interests, at the end of the day, you know?”

“Do we?” says Bokuto miserably.

“I know,” says Akaashi.

“The new shogun, that... kid.” Saeko frowns deeply. “He’s outlawed dragon killing. Anything that isn’t in-the-moment self-defense could get you thrown in jail.”

Even Bokuto falls silent at that.

Admittedly, even Akaashi is having a hard time wrapping his head around this. He has been tracking dragons since he was fourteen, and Bokuto (himself then sixteen) recruited him to “the future best-ever dragon-fighting squad in all of Japan— _all_ of it, Akaashi.” _Fukurodani_ , he called it. If Akaashi could track rabbits and deer—which he could, his father was a hunter by trade—then he could track dragons, Bokuto assured him, and if he could track dragons? He would never be hungry. They were poor boys living meal-to-meal in the gutters of Edo... now, in the span of five short years, Bokuto has made a household name of himself. People throw lavish celebrations when they pass through towns. They have a support staff, the best weapons money can buy. That was always how it was, if you could be good at killing dragons in this country. It was a way to build yourself up. The only way.

Bokuto is first to speak, as usual, and there’s a tremor in his voice. Everyone can hear him teeter on the brink of explosion and it is all Akaashi can do not to brace himself. “I don’t understand...”

“Not a lot of us do,” Saeko grunts. “He thinks he can change how people live in this country with one law.”

“We’ll fight him, then,” Bokuto announces, and Akaashi reflexively shakes his head.

“Bokuto-san...”

“What else are we supposed to do? What else have we got?”

Saeko digs the heels of her boots into the dirt around the fire. “We don’t know what he’s got up his sleeve, to enforce the law. Could be an empty threat.”

“It’s still absurd,” Akaashi murmurs.

“I don’t disagree.”

Bokuto is on his feet, pacing. “So you think we just keep hunting? Ignore it?”

Saeko stays quiet for what feels like a long time. Akaashi tries to think of the last time he saw samurai—and samurai who weren’t dragon hunters themselves. He had gotten the sense that, with all the talk of invasion and no move from the now-deceased shogun to gather them, bushi were scattering. Hiding. “I’ve got a weird suspicion about why he’s doing this,” Saeko finally announces. Bokuto perks up.

“Me too,” says Akaashi. Bokuto perks up even more.

“He wants our attention.”

Akaashi nods. “He wants us to come to him. He’s preparing an army for the Mongol attack.”

“It seems most likely,” Saeko agrees. “I can’t really see it being on moral grounds or anything.” Her head tilts a little to the side. “Unless...”

“Unless what?” Bokuto keeps looking between the two of them, hanging on every word.

“It’s a long shot,” Saeko admits. “But I did hear—a while back now... some talk about how we ought to be allying with dragons, not killing them.”

Akaashi blinks. He once saw Tanaka Saeko drive her polesword through a dragon’s skull, with one push. This is just about the last thing he would expect from her.

“ _Ally_ with dragons?” Bokuto laughs a little, uncertain. “What, like... like, pet them, and stuff?”

“Ride them.”

Akaashi squints at her. He doesn’t like heights.

“I’m just wondering,” she adds, noncommittal. “I think… the people I heard it from. They might’ve gotten access to Oikawa’s inner circle. Not saying he’s had some kind of revelation about dragons, or anything. Just that I think I know where the idea came from.”

“A dangerous idea,” Bokuto decides. Saeko lifts an eyebrow.

“From dangerous people.” Somehow, Akaashi gets the sense that whoever Saeko is talking about—they’re not exactly an enemy. Which seems odd for her, yet again. A Warrior Princess with peacemaker friends… but there’s something novel about it that seems perfectly in line with Tanaka’s sense of humor.

“Regardless!” Maybe feeling the intensity of Akaashi’s gaze, Saeko doesn’t seem like she wants to linger on this possibility. “I get his point. I don’t want us to be fending off an invasion in a few weeks with half an army.”

“So what do you propose?” Akaashi asks. Saeko looks around the fire, at Bokuto and Akaashi and their friends and servants.

“Well, first of all, I say we gather up a few more friends. I heard Wakatoshi has been hanging out around Datekou lately. Let’s make a party of it. And then…” For the first time during this surprise visit, Tanaka Saeko grins. “You guys wanna take a trip to the capitol?”

* * *

You wouldn’t think that four months could change people as drastically as it’s changed Hinata and Kageyama. But then again, Yachi isn’t the person she was when they left, either.

When Momo first started squealing and pushing her along toward the beach, she’d been alarmed. She was on her own doing some gathering for Kiyoko-san in the forest, and at first blush the dragon’s excitement had seemed like hysteria. It reminded her of their first meeting, how she’d cowered with frantic eyes in the village square, lashing out at anyone who dared to approach her with a raised weapon. So Yachi had gone in unarmed.

She goes to the beach similarly naked, just her empty hands clutching at her kimono, and a small dragon at her back.

The impression of Hinata and Kageyama’s difference hits her right away, the moment she seems them on the beach and happiness and relief rush her to the point of lightheadness. As the day goes on she gets a chance to observe what it is about them, exactly, she sees that’s so changed.

Both of them have grown out their hair: Hinata’s, messier than ever, constantly being pushed out of his eyes; with the way Kageyama wears his pulled back, she might not have recognized him. It’s very becoming, she realizes, after pondering it for quite some time. She wonders if Hinata has noticed that as well. 

And she thinks Kageyama seems physically larger too, like he has grown half-a-foot. She watches him talk to Ukai-san and turns to Yamaguchi-kun, asks if he sees it too. The freckled boy hums. “It’s probably because he looks so much older.”

“Older…”

“Yeah. He looks way older than nineteen, don’t you think?” When Yachi just blinks up at him, he forces a laugh. “I don’t know—maybe it’s crazy! I just thought the mainland kind of aged him. Hinata too.”

“What are you talking about?” comes Tsukishima’s voice, sharply, from behind them. He slips in beside Yamaguchi, but spots Momo sitting not far from Yachi and steps back again.

“I was just saying that I think Kageyama looks way older.”

“He looks exhausted.”

Yamaguchi’s lips twitch. He shrugs. He was probably trying to be nice about it.

“Hm,” says Yachi. Does she look exhausted? She doesn’t think she does, and things have certainly been… active, lately, around here. As the day goes on, she wonders if they’ll have a visit from one of the other dragons at any point. She wants to show Hinata all the work she’s done. She’s… proud. It’s an amazing feeling, it almost feels too large for her. Like a rich silk garment that doesn’t fit right.

“Do you think they’ve made any progress at all?” Tsukishima asks quietly. Hinata and Kageyama have now gotten into an argument over whether or not it’s appropriate for Hinata to hug Suga-san. Tsukishima’s tone would suggest that he doesn’t in fact think they’ve made any progress, but Yamaguchi pushes back.

“Why would they have been gone so long if they weren’t getting anywhere?” They were gone a very long time, Yachi realizes, considering their original plan; no wonder they look so different. Things had been busy enough on Karasuno that, even when their presence was missed, the span of the absence was overlooked in a whirlwind of dragon meet-and-greets, experiments going right, tentative revolution. And perhaps she’s a little guilty, but… missing someone doesn’t bring them back. They’d made the choice to stay away as long as they did. She pushes down a little bit of hurt at that.

“Maybe they were having fun.” Tsukishima’s mouth puckers when he pauses. “The shogun’s place in Kyoto. Can’t be a bad time. They say he’s got an eye for luxury. Look at their clothes…”

Yamaguchi’s voice trembles but what he says next is really an announcement, any way you hear it: “I think they’ve been working hard.” Even with the veil of timidity, he aims this at Tsukishima, who starts, and answers with a frown.

With the tension struck like a match, Yachi is suddenly very uncomfortable. She glances around, looking for an escape route—a friendly face, another conversation to glob onto. Momo watches her with a unique kind of pity in her eyes, the pity dragons reserve for humans. _Poor soul. We dragons don’t have to deal with any of this foolish human awkwardness._ Yachi bites her lip.

Then she catches a booming arrival across the square: “See, Asahi? I told you they’d be back! It’s Shouyou!” And Noya-san enters like a hurricane, as he does, his burly blacksmith trailing him with a smile. Hinata shrieks and bounds toward his favorite senpai with stars in his eyes, and Yachi lets herself be swept up in the new commotion, the difficulty of their departure swallowed up by the happiness of having them home.

* * *

Hinata isn’t sure he has ever seen anything as magical and affecting as the sight of Yachi and her dragon, Momo, interacting. It takes him like some giddy storm; he stands there watching Yachi and Momo, Momo and Yachi, just clinging to the sleeve of Kageyama’s arm and occasionally shaking it like, _are you seeing this? But are you_ really _seeing this, Kageyama-kun?_ Momo seems slightly more outgoing than Yachi herself, but with the same genuine sweetness about her. Yachi demonstrates how her dragon—a Koishi, a breed of pygmy dragon, according to Suga-san, which accounts for her petite size—can puff out the scales around her neck, which makes her look like a tiny white lizard tiger. It makes her look fuzzy, at a distance. Hinata already loves this. He already loves Momo, and he has always adored Yachi.

After their initial interaction with Yachi and Momo, they get swept up in the larger homecoming celebration: the mob of friends and adoptive family swarming them, with demanding questions, more than a dozen inquiries about Kageyama’s hair (“So _long!_ ”) and Hinata’s height (“Have you grown? A little? Maybe?”), food pushed into their hands, drinks poured down their throats. Natsu screaming at the top of her lungs and tackling her brother into the muddy snow. Tsukishima immediately finding a way to say something snide, and Kageyama asking if he’d like to settle things with swords or knives. Hinata asking Sawamura-san point-blank if he and Suga were better now, and Sawamura’s voice cracking when he answers, “Sure are.” Hinata knows they’ve been gone a long time, but in some ways it’s like they never even left. He doesn’t think of this as a trite sentiment. For him it’s just the truth.

And the village is still intact. The houses have roofs, the streets don’t run with blood, human or dragon. It is... a relief. A tremendous one.

With the impromptu celebration put on in their honor, and all the catching up and catching up others they have to do, it seems like night falls just minutes after they arrive. The cold comes out and people head inside to escape it. Hinata builds a fire in the center hearth of his mother’s home and calls his friends to it, feeling comfortable and nostalgic. The noise outside the house dies down gradually; the village is going to sleep, but not them. They keep warm, they keep talking. Their three dragons have disappeared somewhere out over the hills, exploring a new friendship.

“She asked you _what_?”

“Well, she didn’t really ask,” Hinata clarifies. “She more like... gave me her permission?”

Yachi sits back, looking somewhere between affronted and sick to her stomach, and meanwhile Kageyama leans into his line of vision. _He_ looks mad.

“You didn’t tell me about that.”

“Well, it’s not like me and Yacchan are _actually_ going to get married.” Hinata pulls a face, but Kageyama seems seriously offended still. _You’re so jealous, baka_. _You don’t have anyone to ask for permission._ **Shut up.**

Yachi recovers enough from shock (so absorbed in it she must not have heard Hinata’s previous statement) to lean toward Hinata and say, in quiet, devastated apology, “Hinata-kun, I don’t—I _really_ don’t want to marry you.”

Kageyama snorts violently and Hinata flings a pebble at him.

The fire in the hearth in the hearth crackles, then dies a little more. The three of them huddle closer to it. Hinata narrows in on Hitoka; they’ve spoken about the mainland enough; he has so many questions.

“Hitoka-chan, tell us more about Momo! And the others!”

Yachi smiles just at the mention of her dragon’s name. “Like what?”

“Like, have you ridden her yet?”

Yachi ducks her head. In his head he hears Kageyama caution, **Don’t rush her.**

“Flying is kind of a different story,” Hitoka finally says.

“Do you think she’d let you?”

“Oh, I mean, I don’t know...”

**What did I just say?**

Hinata glances at Kageyama and gets a reproving glare. _Okay. Okay._

“Momo is the only wild dragon we’ve gotten to stay on Karasuno so far.” But there _are_ more—Suga-san had told them so over their supper, that they’d made a lot of progress after Yachi had (very bravely, it sounds like) dared to reach out to Momo. “The others come to visit a lot, though. There’s another Pygmy, a little brown one, that’s really taken a liking to Nishinoya-san. Even though... he’s a bit scared of her. Azumane-san says he thinks Nishinoya-san will soon get over this,” she reports, with a valiant nod. “And I know there’s a Watatsumi that lets Daichi-san pet him. Oh, and Tanaka-san, there’s this Mizuchi...”

This time when Hinata looks at Kageyama, both their expressions have shifted. “We always knew there was potential for special bonds between individual humans and dragons,” Kageyama offers, trying to seem rational, like this news doesn’t... thrill him. But Hinata can hear the hammering in his chest, and knows better.

“Yeah, we did.” Hinata beams. It’s just like he had hoped. He looks back to Yacchan, who is smiling nervously. “I think they had a lot of help from Hitoka, though.”

She shrugs. “I just did what you taught me.”

“You did it really well.” Looking at her just then, Hinata feels his heart swell two sizes, and he thinks of the things he said to Yachi’s mother all those months ago, and how much more he wishes he could add now. And then he pounces on her. Surprise hug.

“Hinata-kun!” she squeaks.

“I think if you hug her any harder, you’re going to be legally required to marry her.”

“Oh, Kageyama, always so vulgar,” Hinata complains, untangling himself from Yachi. She sits with her hands pressed to her reddened cheeks. “I guess things are going so well with Momo, you wouldn’t even _want_ to go back to the mainland, huh?”

He throws Yachi from her embarrassment with this—she sits up and puzzles over him. “What do you mean?”

“It sounded like now that you’re older, you could go work for your mother, if you wanted.” Yachi’s mouth hangs open. She glances around the dark room. “But if you’re doing this great on Karasuno, why would you even want to?” He waits expectantly for her to nod along, but her puzzled expression doesn’t change. 

 **Hey,** says Kageyama. He has stayed quiet through so much of this. **Maybe don’t...**

“Niichan?” Hinata is on his feet at once. Natsu has appeared at the door to the second room, rumple-faced.

“Natsu, did we wake you!”

“It’s all right.”

He goes to her right away, oblivious to the way his friends are watching him with concerned frowns, oblivious to the look they give each other. They are thinking different things: Kageyama about the hard road ahead, about how much easier it would be if Hinata didn’t have a little girl to take care of, about the worst that could happen; Yachi about how long Hinata has been away and how hard it has been for Natsu without him, and how long will he stay this time? Just long enough to break his sister’s heart again. What if there’s no second homecoming?

Hinata kneels to talk to her, a big dopey grin on his face. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine... I’m twelve now, you know.” Natsu sticks out her chin. “I can stay up to talk about adult things.”

“Why do you want to talk about adult things!”

“You’re talking about dragons, and I know lots about dragons now.”

“So you’re the big expert? What do you know?”

“I know that dragons like people who remind them of themselves.” Hinata’s smile shrinks an inch. He knew this on some level, but he’s not sure he’s heard it framed as a fact before. Huh. Maybe Natsu really does know something about dragons. “I’ll be the next one to get a dragon,” she announces, as much to everyone as to her brother. Natsu on a dragon, they’d be running for cover. She starts coming into the main room, pointing fingers. “You guys are barely adults, anyways!”

“We’re totally adults.” Hinata has to scoot on his knees to chase her. He does feel younger the more he bickers with Natsu.

Who ignores him, moving on to assault his friends. “You,” she says to Kageyama. “You’ve been looking out for my brother, right? We have an arrangement.”

“Yeah,” says Kageyama, grinning behind his hand. Asshole. _Asshole_. **Ha...**

“How is he?” Kageyama opens his mouth to answer, but Natsu, she’s sharp. Sharper than Hinata himself could have imagined. Where had he missed out on that gene? She repeats her question like she can smell the bullshit on Kageyama’s breath: “How is he _really_ , I mean?”

And Kageyama hesitates. For a full second, eyes flicking to Hinata.

That’s all it takes for Natsu to sniff out the trouble. “You two are really in it, aren’t you?”

“It’s just a very serious situation,” Kageyama eventually offers up; it’s a half-assed reply but Natsu seems to hear the gravitas in it, and she senses the tension between her brother and his friend, so she shrinks a little and doesn’t press on.

Yachi’s voice breaks the silence, finally. “I had been meaning to ask how your progress is. It seems like you spent so long with the shogun, something must’ve come out of it?”

Kageyama nods, lowers his gaze. “He’s outlawed dragon killing.” Natsu squeaks and Yachi’s eyes go huge.

“You could have opened with that,” she tells Hinata in a high voice.

“Your progress on Karasuno is just as exciting!”

“Not really—this is through all of Japan, right?” Kageyama nods again.

“You two are going to be famous,” Natsu says. Kageyama shakes his head, but Hinata leans right into this possibility.

“Well, _yeah_. We _are_ changing the world. We’re already famous in Kyoto.” This is an exaggeration but Kageyama lets him have it. For all her premature teenage disdain, Natsu’s eyes go wide as saucers when Hinata says this. There’s only so much she can do to hide genuine pride and excitement.

Pride and excitement and _exhaustion_ , he notes, as she stifles a yawn.

“I think we should _all_ go to bed now,” he declares. Natsu pouts, her disappointment overruled by the fact that everyone else is already getting to their feet.

“I’ll walk you back to Kiyoko-san’s,” Kageyama tells Yachi, and Hinata gives him a curious look. He coughs, looking a little dismayed at having to explain himself with everyone listening. “I’ve got to check in on my place. I haven’t been by since we landed.”

Yachi bows and waves on her way out, and Kageyama lingers on Hinata in the doorway. _I’ll see you?_ Hinata asks. **Maybe.** Maybe, Hinata hates ‘maybe.’ And Kageyama has been saying it a lot lately, hasn’t he?

They slip out and Hinata moves on to his next target, sweeping a shrieking Natsu over his shoulder. “This bedtime is for _keeps!_ ”

* * *

Kageyama shakes out his bed in the alley outside his house, but it still smells a little musty once he’s brought it back inside. Overall, though, the situation isn’t as bad as he’d thought: the small assemblage of belongings he calls his own has accrued relatively little dust, no rain or snow has made it under the door, or through the roof. He suspects someone has been coming by to check up on the place. Sugawara, probably. Or maybe Ennoshita-san.

He starts a fire in the sunken hearth at the center of the room—just one room, his house, it was all he had ever needed. Small, but nice, particularly for one person. When the shogun had sent him away all those years ago, it’d been with a decent allowance. Enough to get him a clean wooden floor, a firepit, a couple items of furniture. He appreciates this more now than he did as a child.

He pulls the bed alongside the fire and lays back in it. As he’d suspected it might, a predictable feeling hits him right away, and he aches.

This is the first time he has attempted to sleep alone in months.

Hinata is annoyed with him, he knows. He could tell when he left him to walk Yachi home. Hinata doesn’t understand what the matter is, and it’s just as well he shouldn’t. Kageyama has seized on an opportunity for them to spend a little time apart. Then, he figures, when they come back together, they might have some clarity about what’s going on between them. They might be forced to talk about what had happened on the mainland, that night after the decree was signed, or—or what has been happening for weeks. A part of Kageyama is convinced that if he sits alone in silence long enough, his brain will kick together an explanation. He’s the sort of person to walk away from a problem until he can approach it, sword drawn, knowing the exact solution.

But it still sucks to sleep alone. Hard to say if that’s just the soutai, or if it’s worse because things aren’t great between them, right now. He slept so badly after they fought and Hinata ran off… this is weaker, but miserable all the same.

He’s just got to be _patient_. Suffer through it. He’ll see Hinata tomorrow morning—he could even pull him aside, somewhere no one will see them, and kiss him roughly. His eyes close at this possibility, he inhales. Hinata would kiss him back with twice as much vigor, he was never good at being patient.

He hears a tiny scratch at the door, and his eyes fly open. Should have known.

He knows it’s Hinata instantly—he can feel his aura seeping through the cracks in the outer wall. “Come in.” He pulls himself to sit up. Hinata slips inside. He’s not nearly as bundled up as he should be, for how cold it is outside. “Aren’t you freezing?”

“I thought I could make it from my house to yours.” But as he stumbles toward the fire and the bed, shivering, it’s obvious this was a miscalculation.

“Dumbass,” Kageyama mutters, tugging one of the blankets around Hinata’s trembling shoulders. They make eye contact and Kageyama’s immediate instinct is to break it again, moving to stoke the fire. “Did you just leave Natsu?” he asks.

“She’s asleep, she’ll be fine. Why did you run off like that?” So blunt. Kageyama glares.

“I didn’t ‘run off.’”

“Do you not want to sleep with me?” Hinata demands. Maybe it’s that his teeth are chattering, but there might be some insecurity in this question.

“Don’t be stupid.”

“I’m not being stupid! Are you avoiding me?” This is— _bizarre_ , Hinata’s been the one avoiding _him_ , and yet he seems so frantic. He grabs Kageyama’s arm, fingers digging in sharply. “What’s your problem? What did I _do_?” And his voice breaks—Kageyama stares at him and his eyes are watering, his lip trembling.

“Hinata.” He tries to speak softly. Not to let the frustration burn through. “Listen to yourself.”

Hinata’s gaze hovers on him for a moment, vibrating with intensity, and then he squeezes his eyes shut. Half-formed tears run down his cheeks.

“You’re exhausted,” Kageyama murmurs. The traveling, the stress of a war and a mission. Hinata’s energy only gives the illusion of being endless. “You’re too tired to talk about this now.”

“No,” he croaks. “I want to talk about it now!”

“Tomorrow—”

“Let’s talk about it _now_.” That sounds definitive. Kageyama submits to this. Hinata sucks in a few deep, steadying breaths, and wipes his face.

There’s a moment where they just sit quietly. Neither of them knows how or where to begin.

Ultimately Kageyama doesn’t know how to broach a topic with delicacy.

“What did you see?”

There. It’s a start. He knows Hinata has caught his drift, because he bows his head. This is hard for him, hard for them both. Kageyama’s heart is pounding.

“I don’t…”

“That day we took the letter.”

“I know what you’re asking.” Hinata lifts his head. His brow is furrowed. It’d be sweet, excepting the circumstances. “I don’t know what it was. How to describe…”

“Even a little?”

Hinata opens his mouth, struggles for a beat, then shakes his head. There must be a way around this.

“You can see it, right? You remember what you saw?” Hinata nods weakly. He doesn’t seem too happy about that.

Kageyama grits his teeth—they’re _soutai_ , they live inside each other’s minds, it seems impossible that there’s no way for them to share—and then he remembers. The double memory. Seeing through Hinata’s eyes. Seeing his own face staring down at him, feeling Hinata’s blood leaking out of him.

“Come here.” He pulls them closer, so they’re sitting cross-legged in the bed directly opposite one another. Their knees bump. He slips Hinata’s arms out from under the blanket. Slides their fingers together, both hands. “Try to open your mind, as much as you can.” Hinata gives another tiny nod. Kageyama is doing the same thing himself: he takes the psychic motion of raising his screen, and presses back in the opposite direction. He leans forward and presses his forehead to Hinata’s. The touch feels delicious and it’s distracting. He has to resist the urge to kiss him. “Send me the memory.” If they can share words, shouldn’t they be able to share images?

“What?” murmurs Hinata, nervously.

“Just like when you talk to me, but try to—to do it with what you’re seeing.”

“Noya and Asahi-san, they never said—”

“Ours is more powerful.” He can feel the warmth of Hinata’s breath around his lips and chin. “Just try it.”

“Okay.”

And there’s a sudden push at the front of Kageyama’s brain—he almost rears back from it. Their soutai stretches, widens, absorbs more energy. Whatever they’re doing isn’t something that Asahi and Noya could do, he guesses. The push happens again, and… the picture of a dark room leaks into his inner vision. A series of dark rooms, and he’s being lead through them. He hears sounds and sees movement. He feels a surge of fear—what Hinata had felt, on that day.

He pulls away. Their hands still laced together, Hinata peers at him with huge, questioning eyes.

“A brothel?”

“A _what?_ ” says Hinata, quite tearfully.

“A house of prostitution.” Hinata still seems bewildered, and Kageyama’s eyes narrow. “Do you… know what a prostitute is?”

“No!”

“ _Oh_ ,” says Kageyama, as understating settles over him. “No wonder. A prostitute is a person you pay for sex.”

Hinata gasps and leaps out of the bed, face scrunched in horror. “People _do that?_ ”

“How did you not know about this?” Kageyama asks, trying his best not to laugh. He’d known Hinata was a bit naive, but this seems… extreme.

“ _Because_ ,” Hinata screeches, waving his arms—but still clinging to the blanket, so he looks like a peculiar, disgruntled bat. “On Karasuno, people pay each other for… for nice decent things! Like meat buns! And hats!” He paces the length of the room, then points frantically at Kageyama. “How do _you_ even know about them!”

“I knew before I came here.” It’s a little sickening to remember how long he’s been aware of this practice, if only in the abstract. “I had a rich father.” He picks at the mattress. “I understood enough of it.”

Hinata’s fervor dies slightly at this revelation. “That’s… sad.” Kageyama shrugs again. Hinata snivels, and shuffles a couple of feet back toward the bed. “I don’t understand… all of the people in that place.” Kageyama looks up at him. “They were all men.”

Kageyama had hoped, quietly, that his soutai wouldn’t raise this question. He only shrugs in answer. Hinata falls to his knees at the edge of the bed.

“Can men have sex?”

His voice is so soft. Frightened and amazed. His face looks perfect in the firelight.

“I guess so,” Kageyama murmurs. He has tensed all over—he doesn’t know what will come out of Hinata’s mouth next, what spontaneous, gentle, curious question he’ll ask. If it will be the one that scares Kageyama the most.

“How?”

He exhales. That’s not it. “I don’t know,” he says quickly. But he _has_ thought about it. At length. To a fault, maybe. He has ideas but not answers.

Hinata is sitting on the bed, now, but still too far away for Kageyama to touch him. It’s agony. “I really thought the men in that place were… hurting each other, or something.” He chews at the nail of his thumb, then glances sidelong at Kageyama. “It wasn’t how I thought it was going to be.”

“What wasn’t?”

“Sex…”

“How would you want it to be?”

A smile crinkles the skin around his eyes. “Happy. Like, nice and… fun. Because you love each other.”

Kageyama nods shortly. He has to stare into his lap. “Ah. Yes.”

“You think so too?” Hinata gets up and crawls a little bit toward him. He feels better the second a hand slips around his.

“Yes… it’s supposed to feel good.” Hinata hums in agreement, and Kageyama’s impulses take over. “I think if you were ready for it, and you were very careful and gentle and you took the time to figure out what felt good and what didn’t, that it could be really good, and it wouldn’t hurt, and it would be great.” After this he’s somewhat winded; it came out of him like gust, thoughts long-percolated in the back of his head.

Hinata is still smiling but it’s hard to say if he’s really _getting it—_ he gets… so little. _I’m talking about us._ It’s easier to say this in his head than out loud, but maybe too easy: it slips out before he’s had the chance to consider if it’s really what he wants to say. And he has to wonder if Hinata even heard, because his expression doesn’t change. Just that smile. Lines around his eyes. Maybe Kageyama has gone too far. _Be more fucking obvious, Tobio._

Then Hinata squeezes his hand.

**Okay.**

“Okay,” Kageyama repeats out loud, stupidly. Hinata giggles.

“I think you’re right!”

Kageyama leans in and kisses him, a quick one, a brush against his lips. “Say that more often.” And then he gets a face-full of Hinata’s palm as he’s shoved away in punishment. He frees his view from the hand just in time to see Hinata yawning hugely. “I told you, you’re exhausted.”

“So what if I am!”

“We’re going to sleep.”

A tiny smile curls Hinata’s mouth. “Does that mean you’ll let me stay here tonight?”

“Fine,” Kageyama grunts, like this is grudging; but he couldn’t say no if he tried. So they settle down to sleep, snug against each other for the first time in weeks, no need to rush. Outside Kinboshi and Haizora are wide awake, their shapes streaking across the full moon as they enjoy the familiar skies; like their masters, they are happy to be home, and happy to be ignorant of the future, if only for a night.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you ever have a time machine and go back to the 13th century and have gay children and you don't die prematurely, please talk to your kids about sex.
> 
> (honestly, though, there was no way i was going to be able to write a scene where they talk about sex without it being a little bit or very funny. i hope you enjoyed it. i've decided there won't be smut in the main body of the fic, but i will write a one shot about it, for those who are interested in soutai bangin'. it should come after the next chapter and be pretty seamless with the main story, like a behind-the-scenes kind of thing.)


	10. flight

“You went to Kyoto to blackmail him, and you came back as allies?”

Kageyama supposes, when Ukai puts it so simply, there _is_ something bizarre in their change of heart about Oikawa. If you could even call it that—more a change of mind than of heart. He was never foolish enough to let Oikawa into his heart, nor anyone in Kyoto, except perhaps Iwaizumi-san. A little.

“It seemed prudent,” he answers, with a shrug. Ukai exchanges a complicated look with Takeda.

It’s Kageyama and Hinata’s third day back on Karasuno, and their island’s leaders—Ukai-san, Takeda-san, Sugawara, and Sawamura—had called on them to give a report of what they did and learned. The two of them sit opposite the older men, as if presenting for a council; so far this has involved Hinata talking at length and Kageyama nudging him to slow down, then summarizing the point.

“Oikawa-sama’s a bit scary, but he’s not so bad,” Hinata offers, bouncing a little where he sits. “Iwaizumi-sensei, his bodyguard, is very nice. And good with swords.” A tiny smile finds the corners of Kageyama’s mouth. Hinata is cute. When he turns his head, he spots Suga-san watching him carefully.

Ukai holds up a fist and raises fingers as he speaks. “The country’s preparing for invasion,” one finger, “Oikawa-sama has banned the killing of dragons in anything other than immediate self-defense,” two fingers, “and you two are drafted into his army as dragon-mounted samurai,” three fingers. “Am I missing anything?”

“Hinata’s not technically a samurai yet,” Kageyama explains, to an incredible pout from his soutai. “He has some training left to complete. But by the spring…”

Ukai drops his hand and sighs. “You’ve been busy.”

Hinata leans forward, looking between the four of them with big eyes. “You’ve all been busy too! Karasuno’s doing great, now all you’ve got to do is ride them. If we can come back to the mainland with four or five more dragon samurai, there’s no way we’ll lose to the Mongols.” Kageyama frowns at the looks on their leaders’ faces as Hinata goes on. If only he could be convinced to stop. “And you know, if dragon samurai are really instrumental in stopping the invasion, people are going to start seeing what good allies we make! And we won’t even need the decree anymore, because—”

“Hinata-kun, forgive me.” This is Takeda’s quiet interruption. “It’s a matter of weeks until spring arrives and the watch for the invasion begins. What’s going on between Karasuno’s people and dragons is a slow process.”

Hinata’s face scrunches up, and Kageyama inhales sharply. He reaches out to put a hand on Hinata’s knee but it does nothing. _We should talk about this before you bring it up_. Hinata hears him because he gets a sideways glance, but he talks back to Takeda anyway. “What do you mean, ‘a slow process’? It’s not that hard once you’re friends, it only took me a few weeks.”

“Not everyone is like you, Shouyou,” says Sugawara, quickly, before anyone else can be harsher.

Hinata opens his mouth to answer but, looking around the room, even he can see there’s no beating around that one with a strong will and a loud voice. Kageyama’s chest aches for him in a way that has nothing to do with their soutai; the longer they’re together the harder it is to see him unhappy. Kageyama worries how this might affect their future, with its high probability of unsmiling faces.

All the things Sawamura has considered saying but ultimately held in carve lines around his mouth. He speaks for the first time since they sat down to talk. “We’re not going to turn the tide of a war. Karasuno has nothing to fear from an invasion, we’re on the opposite side of the mainland.”

“A good point,” mutters Ukai.

“It’s not as if we have no relationship with the mainland,” Suga argues. “I agree that Hinata-kun’s plan is a little hasty, but a mainland that isn’t Japanese-controlled would be hard for us, too.” He’s talking primarily to Sawamura, Kageyama notices. That seems strange when it’s really Ukai-san’s decision, butSawamura’s reluctance does appear to be the strongest.

But Sawamura shakes his head. “We can’t afford to lose anyone else.” He says this like it’s his final opinion on the matter.

“Sawamura-san,” Hinata begins, in a whine. He pauses at the squeeze Kageyama gives his knee, enough for their island’s leadership to continue their conversation unimpeded.

“Do you think that’s the smartest thing, Sawamura?” Ukai asks. Takeda contemplates the ceiling.

“I’ve learned my lesson about rushing into fights that are too big for us.”

Sawamura’s severity ices the room. Sugawara winces. Even Kageyama, thus far unmoved by anything other than Hinata, lowers his head. Hinata worries his lip, eyes flicking between them all, searching for an opening he doesn’t get.

“Fair enough,” Ukai declares in an exhale. The only person who looks more disappointed than Hinata is Sugawara, but he’s better at hiding it. _We’ll figure something out,_ Kageyama tells Hinata. He finally gets a response, a tiny, **Okay**.

Takeda seizes the opportunity to take the conversation in a different direction. He smiles in that default way that’s not out of happiness but a desire to reassure the people around him. “Kageyama-kun.”

“Yes?”

“Have you considered Oikawa-sama’s ulterior motives?”

Kageyama blinks. His stomach twists, doubling back over their time on the mainland to think if there’d been anything he could have misunderstood, but it’s too much and Oikawa is a master of subtlety. “What do you mean?” He’s thinking Takeda means a secret plot against their lives, or maybe an attempt to steal their dragons. But he never was good at _politics_ , not naturally. His mind doesn’t work that way.

“I worry that perhaps Oikawa-sama was too quick in accepting your offer. That he might have a strategy in mind…”

“His strategy is to protect himself from Haizora and Kinboshi,” says Kageyama flatly. That was the point of their dramatic entry into the courtyard the day they made their alliance, to show Oikawa their power. It’s hard to deny once you’ve seen them on the backs of their dragons.

“I’m sure that’s part of it,” says Takeda, nodding. “I only mean, Oikawa-sama is our shogun. It would be difficult to become shogun if you didn’t know how to work for yourself. And not just self-protection.”

Kageyama blinks some more. Now he’s sure he doesn’t know what Takeda means, and it’s frustrating. He shifts his seat and frowns, embarrassed. “Maybe. What are you suggesting?”

“What has he promised you?”

“He promised us he would pass the decree banning dragon killing, and he did.”

“And how will he enforce that degree?”

“Enforce it,” Kageyama echoes. “I’m sure he’s thought about that. He knows there’s the possibility people will be unhappy about it…”

Takeda’s smile doesn’t falter. “Samurai are independent contractors. They can’t simply be ordered to give up their livelihood.”

“Oikawa-sama said he would take care of it,” Hinata butts in, and really butts in, his face screwed up in annoyance and determination. “He’s supporting us! We need his help.”

“I don’t doubt that, Hinata-kun.”

“Then why are you saying we shouldn’t trust him?”

“Because this is important, and you have to be wise.” Hinata shrinks. ‘Wise’ is hard for him. “If it’s important to you, and it is, you want to be smarter about achieving your goal.” Takeda explains this better than Kageyama could, and Kageyama can see that it’s working for Hinata. The gears are turning in his head. He finally sits back and nods. Kageyama makes a note of Takeda’s technique, for future reference.

“There’s nothing I can do about it now,” Kageyama says through his teeth.

“I know. But it’s something to be aware of, when you return to the mainland. From what you’ve told me I get the feeling that Oikawa-sama may not be your friend.”

The many hours they had spent planning the decree are coming back to Kageyama… the way Oikawa would listen to what he had to say with the tiniest smile on his lips, sometimes nodding along, and speak to him in a cheerful but often monotonous voice. His obvious disinterest in the dragons themselves, always changing the topic when Kageyama would discuss his bond with Haizora in detail.

It fills him with deep anger and fear to think that Oikawa could have been hiding something, but that anger is as much with himself as the shogun. Of course Oikawa would not be entirely straight with him: only a few weeks before they made their deal, he’d had his sword at Kageyama’s throat.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he manages. “Is there anything else you’d like to ask us?”

Ukai waits for a nod from Takeda before he says, “That’s all.”

“Can I at least have permission to teach Yachi how to ride Momo?” Hinata asks, more reserved than before. He’s begging for scraps.

“I think that should be up to Yachi herself,” says Suga warmly. Hinata frowns, not feeling good about the outcome that’s likely to get him.

“You can go,” Ukai announces. Hinata and Kageyama bow, then get to their feet. Hinata bows again before they go out.

On the way back to the village, the words Hinata had managed to hold in come tumbling out. “They’re not listening to me. They know what happened the last time they didn’t listen, and they’re still not doing it.”

“You need to focus on results, not permission,” says Kageyama, though his mind is stuck on Takeda’s warning about Oikawa. The sinking sensation won’t leave his stomach.

“I don’t know what that means!”

“Ah… convince Yachi to ride Momo.” Hinata’s eyes brighten. “Gently,” Kageyama adds, knowing that Hinata needs to be reminded. Hinata pulls a face.

“I know _that_. Yachi and I get along great, it’ll be fine. She’ll listen to me.”

Kageyama holds his tongue, but he _wants_ to say that it isn’t them getting along he’s worried about. Hinata has a tendency to bowl over quieter personalities, and they won’t get anywhere if Yachi only goes through the motions to appease Hinata’s energy. Which is another thing for Kageyama to keep an eye on, he thinks bitterly.

He takes a step and his sandal sinks into the path; the ground’s not so frozen as it was yesterday. The cold night led into a sunny morning. He pauses to stare at the mud. A sure spring being closer than they think. “What?” says Hinata, poking into his line of vision.

Kageyama takes a deep breath and keeps walking. “We’ve just got to hurry, is all. Let’s find Yachi.”

* * *

On a deeper, rational level, Daichi doesn’t understand why he pretends he’s still sleeping at the stables. There’s no way Ukai and Takeda haven’t noticed his not coming home night after night, they aren’t clueless. They may not know Suga’s involvement—he can hope—but they’ve probably guessed that there is _someone_ keeping Daichi in the village.

But his mouth lies before he can think to stop it. He promises to meet Tanaka in the stable yard at dawn, and has to get up twenty minutes early to ensure no one sees him coming from Suga’s. He walks all the way back to the barn after the night of a festival and lies in the loft for half an hour, before creeping back across the rice fields to a sleepy town. Every few days he makes a show of arranging his sleeping space to look lived-in, in case anyone should come by and be suspicious.

All the while he does these things there’s a voice in his head saying, _pointless_. But he has a reputation to uphold—Suga’s reputation. He’s almost certain that, in Suga’s taking a lover, the _stable_ is more shameful than the _boy_. Either way, it’s a combination worthy of keeping secret.

Not that Suga understands this, because he’s… Suga, and he’s driven by a desire to see the best in people that makes Daichi think it must be _his_ job to see the worst. Someone needs to guard Suga’s back. Even if he may resist, lying in bed in the early hours of the morning and trying to tug Daichi back into his bed, murmuring, _five more minutes, please… No one’s going to care._

“I wish that were true,” Daichi will say, gently shaking off Suga’s grasp. Suga’s dismissal of the issue only solidified his resolve.

Suga would fall back asleep as soon as Daichi had risen without further protest. He hasn’t managed to incur any real annoyance so far. Daichi has decided that Suga understands where he’s coming from—he just wants to care for this very precious thing they have. He knows how delicate it is, from experience. He wants no regrets; he wants never to be crushed by guilt again, or see Suga sobbing with anger. His reasoning is simple enough, he doesn’t know how Suga could _not_ see it.

He won’t shake things up, no. Not with Suga, and not with a mainland war that isn’t theirs to fight. Caution rules. He’s learned.

Ukai keeps the two of them for a few minutes after Kageyama and Hinata have returned to the village, wanting to discuss planting preparations for spring’s impending arrival. He can tell Suga is watching him closely, but he keeps his eyes trained on Ukai. That’s where his responsibility lies, in the moment.

Suga’s quiet as they go outside, giving Ukai and Takeda nothing more than a bow.

They walk halfway to the village in silence before he catches Suga’s gaze with a sideways glance and watches his eyes go big with determination.

“Go on and say it,” Daichi sighs. Suga’s expression sours.

“Don’t…”

“No, I know you’re upset about what I said. I want to hear your concerns.”

“I’m not… _upset_ ,” Suga answers, and he bites his lip for a moment while he considers how to phrase what he’s about to say.

While Suga thinks, Daichi slows his steps, so they’ll take their time walking back to the apothecary. It’s not such a bad day outside, despite the cold; he can smell that the flowers want to bloom.

“I suppose I don’t see why it isn’t worth _trying_ to help with the invasion.” Daichi watches him out the corner of his eye. His hair is getting longer, but it suits him. Daichi will have to remember to protest before he cuts it again.

“You can’t just dip your toe into a war.”

“I’m not—I’m only saying, give him a chance to get people on dragons.” Daichi turns to look straight ahead, but Suga’s hand is on his sleeve. “You don’t have to let them go to war if they’re not ready. If it’s a disaster, we tell Hinata to stop. Or we tell Kageyama to tell Hinata to stop.”

“It’d have to be that,” says Daichi, smiling. Suga returns the gesture hopefully. “Maybe if he can get Yachi on one.” There. That seems fair. If Hinata can teach skittish, good-tempered Hitoka to get on a dragon’s back, then (Daichi tells himself stubbornly) he might be ready to build a calvary. Maybe. When he thinks of it this way, the stupidity of letting it go any further than that seems especially obvious.

Suga looks like he’d rather keep pressing, but he can also see that Daichi has relented an inch, admitting he might be persuaded otherwise. So instead of arguing he swallows hard, and says, “I still have friends on the mainland, you know. Many of us do. It’s silly to act as if we’ve got no vested interests there.”

“Suga,” Daichi sighs.

“I’m only saying that we can’t view this situation with blinders on!”

“I don’t have blinders on. I think I might be seeing more than you.”

Now Suga is upset. He has no poker face, when he’s disgruntled it twists his features into an awful scowl. “I… I don’t know what to say to you.”

“Suga,” Daichi sighs, slipping his hands into his obi.

“You learned caution when you should have learned to listen to me,” Suga snaps. He takes off toward the village, double-time. Daichi scratches his chin. It seems like it would be more foolish to doubt himself, and go around flip-flopping on his decisions, and that’s what Suga would have him do. 

He jogs to catch up. “Sugawara. Suga.” He catches Suga’s arm and tugs him to a halt. Suga purses his lips so they’re barely visible. “Let’s not argue about it right now. If Hinata can get Yachi on that dragon, then we’ll have this fight.” He drops Suga’s arm. Suga shakes out his shoulder, then turns back down the path.

“Fine!”

Daichi grins at Suga’s back for a moment before extending his stride to catch up. “I don’t like arguing with you.”

“Why, because you always lose?” says Suga quickly, with a little hop. He is _so…_

Daichi shrugs, the sight of Suga’s eager face making him smile. How easy it’ll be, leaving these heavy conversations outside when they return to the apothecary together. “Whatever you want to think.”

“I absolutely want to think that you know in your heart of hearts I’m right, and you’ll listen to me when it comes time to decide.”

“Then think that,” says Daichi, grinning, a little hoarse. “If it makes you happy. Come on, let’s get inside.”

* * *

Paper is scarce on Karasuno. It’s a luxury. It can’t be wasted.

So Yachi drafts her letter to her mother in the dirt of the alley behind Kiyoko-san’s shop. And it’s a good thing, too: after seven attempts, she still hasn’t decided what it is she wants to say. It would have been a massive waste, writing the inadequate words in ink. She gives up and brushes the text away with a broom, then returns to hanging laundry.

Amidst her fretting she considers that she may not even need to write a letter. Not if she returns to the mainland with Hinata and Kageyama. On Momo.

It isn’t that she’s afraid of heights, or particularly disposed to protest change. It’s just that she, Yachi Hitoka, is a normal, sensible girl with a slightly nervous disposition, who has already done a lot in service of Hinata-kun’s mission and has no interest whatsoever in fighting Mongols, with or without Momo to help her.

She likes the relationship she has with her dragon right now, sort of like you’d have with a big cat, except Momo radiates heat and there’s nothing quite like having a giant heated pillow to cuddle with in the middle of winter. She’s even kind of soft and squishy.

An orange blur bursts between two sheets on the clothesline and Yachi screams.

“Yacchan! Yacchan, it’s just _me_ ,” Hinata is saying, poking toward her with his hands up. She stumbles back, gasping for air.

“Hinata-kun!”

“Don’t _do_ that,” comes Kageyama’s voice from the other side of the line, and he emerges too. She isn’t surprised: the two of them have been inseparable since they returned to Karasuno.

“How are you?” Hinata asks, bouncing on his heels. Kageyama stomps over to sit on the steps at the back of the shop.

“I’m well! I’m doing well.” Now that her heart rate is returning to normal. “How are you both?”

“We’re good,” Hinata chirps, very confident to answer for both of them. “Where’s Momo?”

“She went to catch some fish, I think.”

Hinata nods enthusiastically. He looks like there’s something he very much wants to say, and he doesn’t know how much longer he can hold it in. He glances sideways at Kageyama with his lip in his teeth like he’s looking for approval. Kageyama doesn’t speak, but he blinks very slowly once. Hinata must be adept at reading Kageyama’s expressions, because he pouts like he’s just been scolded. He turns back to Yachi.

“So how are you doing!”

“Um.” Yachi glances at Kageyama, who’s rolling his eyes. “Well… though, you already asked me that?”

“Oh! Right, yeah, I remember.”

He grins at her. She smiles back, tentatively, having to squint a little. It’s like the sun is in her eyes. Kageyama is massaging one of his temples. 

A question bursts—and really _bursts_ , like it can’t possibly be contained—from Hinata’s lips: “Can I _show_ you how to ride Momo?” As he asks he grabs for her arm and she moves out of reach on reflex.

“Hinata!” Kageyama is on his feet and Hinata wheels around to argue with him.

“Why shouldn’t I just ask her!” He looks at Yachi with big eyes, getting closer. Closer than comfortable, if only because of his crazy energy. “You don’t mind, right? I promise it won’t be _that_ scary! Momo’s really nice and you two get along, of course she’ll take care of you—”

Kageyama has stormed over and attempts to drag Hinata back from Yachi. “Calm down.”

“I’m _incredibly calm_!” Hinata shouts into his face.

“Stop yelling.”

“I’m sorry,” Yachi blurts, and they both turn to her, startled. “I’m sorry, Hinata-kun, I just don’t—know.”

“What don’t you know?” says Hinata quickly. Kageyama steps in front of him, talking to her over his shoulder while he herds Hinata away.

“That’s fine, Yachi-san.”

“Yacchan! What do you need! How can I make it okay?”

There isn’t anything she needs to hear, she realizes, when Hinata offers. This isn’t about the flying itself, it’s about her priorities, where her mind is.

“Just give me a little while.”

Kageyama stops ushering Hinata to a safe distance, so they can both peek back at her curiously. It must matter to him as well, what she says.

“A few days? To think about it?”

“Take all the time you need,” Kageyama says, right as Hinata says, “Please! Please think about it!”

“I will,” she promises, smiling. Hinata smiles back instantly, it comes naturally to him. Kageyama she can feel looking at her, but she doesn’t know what he’s trying to find. She gives them both a bow.

Kageyama grips Hinata by the shoulders and glares right into his eyes; Hinata glares back at him. Several long seconds pass, and Yachi glances around the yard, feeling awkward. She wonders if this is something they learned on the mainland, like a very serious staring competition.

Hinata finally breaks their gaze by shrugging away Kageyama’s hands. “Yacchan!” He marches toward her, stops at a respectful distance, and throws himself into a deep bow. “I’m sorry.” Kageyama clears his throat. “For—startling you. And being pushy. Sorry.” When he pops up from the bow, his face is red from the blood rush. “Take all the time you need to decide. We can do other things. Like…” He trails off, struggling to brainstorm. Kageyama approaches them.

“We’ll figure it out and let you get back to your chores.”

Hinata considers this and then nods. He makes his way out of the alley, head hanging slightly. Kageyama follows him but pauses just before disappearing around the side of the shop.

“Yachi-san,” he says. “You would be a valuable addition to our team.” Her mouth falls open. “I just wanted you to know.” He gives a bow himself, then vanishes.

Yachi swallows and frowns at the sky. This is complicated—so many things to think about. Her mother, Momo, Hinata-kun and Kageyama-kun. _A valuable addition to our team._ What does Kageyama see in her that would make him say that?

She reaches to unclip a sheet from the line, and shrieks as it comes down on her head, swallowing her up.

* * *

“Kageyama, _get up_.”

Hinata gets a face full of hand from the lump on Kageyama’s bed, shoving him away.

“There’s a dragon in the fields! Kageyama!” He grabs Kageyama’s arm and tries dragging him out of bed, but he’s a _brick_ , and then he starts struggling. Hinata gets yanked down into the bed, very much on top of Kageyama, shrieking.

“The sun isn’t even up,” Kageyama says through his teeth, fighting to keep them down against Hinata’s repeated valiant attempts to stand. Unfortunately he’s got the weight advantage, and once he’s lain on his stomach over Hinata’s torso, there’s not much Hinata can do except beat on the thick muscles of his back. “That feels nice,” he murmurs sleepily. “Go a little lower.”

“It’s an attack, not a massage—we have to go!”

“What’s the dragon doing?”

“Sleeping, but—”

“You shouldn’t wake a sleeping dragon.” Hinata hits his back one more time, then lets his arms flop back to the mattress with a whimper. “It’s cold and dark out. Go back to sleep for an hour.” Kageyama nuzzles into his chest as if to say, _look how comfortable this is_ , but Hinata’s eyes are wide open. His legs are all twitchy.

“The picture Kinchan showed me was of a green Watatsumi. It sounded like the one that comes to visit Dai-san, so I could go and wake them up and take them out to the fields, and then we’d be ready…”

Kageyama says nothing for about ten seconds. His eyes are closed, and Hinata cranes his neck to try and get a sense of whether or not he’s fallen back asleep.

Then comes a muffled, “Don’t think you should go charging into Sawamura’s sleeping quarters.”

“Why— _oh_ —I won’t see anything, stupid, it’s the middle of night—”

“So you admit it’s the middle of the night?” says Kageyama, lifting his head just enough to deliver Hinata a smirk. Hinata shoves him in the head, and then does it again, so that Kageyama finally climbs up off of him.

“I hate you! I do!”

“No, Hinata.”

“I said I _did_.”

They’re now both sitting up, across from each other on the bed, and Kageyama regards him with a frown. He sighs. His hair is messed up from where Hinata shoved his head, and even in the dim light it’s easy to see the circles under his eyes. Hinata’s heart softens. Kageyama _has_ been thinking a lot, lately. Even if the things he thinks are sometimes annoying.

“Remember what I said about Yachi?”

Hinata glances up. They’d had that conversation silently, right in front of her. **You’re scaring her,** Kageyama told him. **Don’t rush it**.

“Yeah,” says Hinata narrowly, not seeing the relevance.

“This is the same thing. Go slower.”

Hinata starts to protest but he doesn’t really know what to say apart from calling him a name, so that’s all he does. “Bakageyama.” He turns away and pouts. Checking out the corner of his eye (to see if it’s working), he sees Kageyama staring at the mattress between them. Hinata can’t hear anything from his thoughts, so he must be shielding them. Then Kageyama lowers his head.

“Take me to see the dragon,” he grunts.

“Really?” Hinata squeaks (though he’s already on his feet and heading for the door).

“Yes. Fine.” Kageyama follows him, slower.

“I don’t hate you, not for real.”

“I know that, dumbass. Take me to see the dragon.”

Kageyama’s right, it’s very early, probably not even five o’clock yet, and very cold outside. He knows the sunrise hasn’t started because he could feel it, if it had. The moon’s still out and shadows sweep across it—Kinboshi and Haizora, keeping an eye on them as they make their way, huddled and shivering, from Kageyama’s place at the south end of the village to the rice fields on the north side of the island.

When he finds the large shape of the Watatsumi curled up under a tree alongside the fields, Hinata gasps and breaks into a jog. Once he gets closer, he can see that the creature is still asleep, its barreled chest rising and falling gently. He wants to get up close and have a better look, but Kageyama stops him about fifteen paces from it. **Don’t test your luck,** says his voice in Hinata’s ear.

_What’s the point of having luck if you don’t test it?_

Kageyama doesn’t reply to that, but Hinata hears him sigh.

“What did you want to do?” he asks aloud, quietly, after they’ve stood there looking over the dragon for a while.

“I was sort of hoping it would wake up once it felt us here.” He glances up over his shoulder, at the moon. “Maybe if Kinchan and Haizora got closer…”

There’s a huff from the dragon and they freeze. One of the eyes, about the same size as Hinata’s entire head, slides open. The iris is a brilliant turquoise. The way the dragon blinks a couple times and turns to look at them reminds Hinata of trying to stir Kageyama a few minutes before, and he has to keep himself from giggling.

“Hello,” he says, raising his arms in greeting. “We come in peace!” And he takes a long step toward the animal.

Kageyama rips him back by the neck of his haori fast enough he might as well be flying, but he’s not disoriented enough to miss why: the dragon had sprung to its feet and bristled the moment he tried to come near it.

It might as well have been a decade since he was afraid of a dragon, despite the contradictory evidence in the scar on his side. But his heart is pounding and Kageyama’s heart is pounding too and there’s no other way to describe what just flashed through him. For a second, he was—terrified.

The dragon shrinks back to normal the moment he retreats, and he realizes they’re not in danger. “You spooked him,” Kageyama mutters.

“I know.” Hinata tugs his haori back into place. “I can’t believe this is the dragon that likes Dai-san, he’s so friendly…” The dragon snorts, like he knows they’re talking about him in less than flattering terms. He looks uncannily like the Watatsumi that once died in these same fields—thick limbs, thicker torso—but his scales are more green than azure and his mane is a pale purple. It’ll be hard to say before they’ve seen him in the sun, but he might be the most colorful dragon Hinata has seen.

He focuses on the colors as he extends his arm to the dragon. **Don’t be an idiot.** “I’m just saying hello,” Hinata announces, half to Kageyama, half to the Watatsumi itself. The dragon shrinks back another foot when he moves, and then stops once he leaves his hand there. _It worked with Kinchan_ , he tells Kageyama, inwardly. Hopefully his own dragon will have the good sense not to be jealous.

The Watatsumi exhales and Hinata thinks, _ha! I did it!_

Then the creature turns, bounds two long strides in the opposite direction, and launches into the air.

“Shit,” says Kageyama, as they watch it flap away, Hinata totally flabbergasted at his utter failure _,_ and Kageyama more than a little annoyed.

“I can’t believe it? Where’s he going? We were—I just wanted to be his friend. It was so _easy_ with Kinchan, why…”

“Because you’re nothing like Sawamura.”

Hinata drops his hand and turns to gape at his soutai. “What?”

Kageyama, officially grumpy, pulls his clothes tighter around himself and turns back to the village. He barks back at Hinata over his shoulder, forcing him to tag along. “Dragons like people who are like them. You’re nothing like Sawamura, so of course the dragon that likes him isn’t going to like you.”

“Well… so?”

“So it just confirms what I’ve said this entire time.” Kageyama wheels around, stopping short to face him, and Hinata slams into his chest. He stumbles back, dazed. “You can’t force this just because you want it a lot. This is about people who aren’t you, and what _they_ choose to do.”

“You’ve never said that before,” says Hinata, astonished.

“No, I’ve just said it _nicer_ , but you woke me up in the middle of the fucking night and dragged me out here and I can’t be nice anymore.”

He wants to push back against this, because Kageyama is really yelling at him and he doesn’t like that, not one bit. But the idea that Kageyama would ever go out of his way to be _nice_ to him, to shield him from unnecessary hurt, punches him in the gut—it gives him a second of stunning clarity, and he can see how much things have changed between them. The difference is dizzying. He doesn’t have the focus to protest more than a mutter. “You don’t have to protect me from stuff. I can take it.”

Kageyama sticks his hands through his hair. “ _Can_ you?”

“Yes! Yes…”

“Hinata—”

“I need your help.” The surprise pulls Kageyama from his anger and he steps back, blinking. Hinata’s voice feels small. “I need you… to tell me when I need to say stuff differently, and when I don’t see what I need to see.” He thinks of Nekoma. How he doesn’t want to fight alone. It’s probably just left over adrenaline from that scare with the Watatsumi, but his throat tightens. “I don’t—I mean, sometimes I just don’t know why it’s not _working_ , and… and I trust you.”

Kageyama continues to glare at him, but Hinata can sense that his annoyance has faded into concern and interest, now. That’s just his default expression when he’s thinking. Hinata gives him a tiny smile, hoping it’ll ease the process.

Kageyama extends his hand. “Okay. Understood.” Smile broadening, Hinata slips his hand into Kageyama’s and squeezes.

“It’s okay?”

“You don’t have to ask for my help,” Kageyama explains softly. “Just tell me what to do.” Hinata beams at him.

“Are you sure!”

“Yeah, I’ll be really mean to you from now on.”

“That’s not what I _meant_.” Hinata lets himself be pulled into Kageyama’s side.

“I know.” Kageyama steers Hinata in the direction of the village, and they walk with arms around each other. The sun has started to rise—Hinata can feel it in the warmth of their touch. “Hurry up, we’re going back to sleep.”

* * *

“This is what you wanted.”

“I know that, Iwa-chan. Hush up, I’m thinking.”

Iwaizumi’s eyes roll into the back of his head. He stands there in the quiet of Oikawa’s chambers for another moment, resisting the urge to tap his foot.

Oikawa, behaving as though he were oblivious to the time-sensitive nature of what is going on, remains seated along the edge of the hearth at the room’s center. The embers are dying, Iwaizumi doesn’t know what there is to see in the fire that fascinates him so deeply or helps him think. He looks calm and focused, which is great, except that in this moment he needs to be looking calm and focused in front of a hundred disgruntled samurai, not in the privacy of his room.

“You wait any longer and you’re not going to have a palace left to hide in.”

Oikawa turns just enough for Iwaizumi to see him roll his eyes. “They aren’t fools.”

“That’s debatable.”

“I’m coming now,” Oikawa murmurs, rising slowly. It hasn’t escaped Iwaizumi’s notice that their shogun has grown lethargic. If not for his intimacy with Oikawa he might be confused as to the cause, but sharing a bed is the surest way to know when someone isn’t sleeping.

He sleeps enough to keep going, of course, but in the three weeks since he and Kageyama finalized their decree and Kageyama and Hinata departed on their dragons, Oikawa has stayed up into the night or awoken from shallow sleep in the small hours of the morning.Without calling it as much, Iwaizumi practiced his own remediation: trying to thoroughly tire him out with sport or sex, having special tea blends made up, _talking_ to him about it. But after the sex he’d only doze off for a few minutes, and the tea had no effect apart from tasting awful, and he had no words with which to work through it. “It’s a problem, I know,” he’d agreed. “But there is just… so much. To do. To think about.”

The hours of sleep he loses go to poring over maps instead, imagining battle scenarios, inventorying supplies. _I’m failing_ , Iwaizumi thinks, watching Oikawa wipe his eyes in preparation to meet the samurai. _I’m serving the prince instead of the person._

“This plan worked nicely, didn’t it?” Oikawa muses, as they leave his private quarters and head for the receiving hall. “They all showed up here, just like I wanted.”

“Yeah, it’s perfect,” Iwaizumi answers, deadpan. With a hundred samurai come entourages, and Kyoto is flooded with people, even more so than usual. The din of the city beyond the walls has doubled, and inside the palace complex parties of bushi and their servants have taken up residence in gardens and walkways. They walk past one such group and stares follow them down the corridor.

“Don’t mock me, Iwa-chan.”

“Never.”

“How many am I seeing today?”

“They’ve selected three to represent the group as a whole. Tanaka, and that loud one with the striped grey hair.”

Oikawa pauses fearfully for a second before asking, “And?”

Iwaizumi doesn’t answer right away. He knows what’s going to happen when he names the third representative, and he doesn’t relish dealing with it, so he waits. The closer they get to the hall, the faster Oikawa will have to work himself down from hysteria.

Unfortunately Oikawa is very smart, senses he’s stalling, and stops in the middle of the walk. “Iwa-chan.” Iwaizumi slows and turns to face him. “Who is the last person?”

Iwaizumi inhales.

“Is it…?”

Iwaizumi scratches the back of his neck.

“You’re kidding,” says Oikawa through his teeth, voice suddenly high. “This is the final straw, you won’t be handling my visitor relations anymore—first Tobio-chan, now—”

“Not the same thing and you know it.”

“I know nothing, apparently.” Oikawa waltzes past him, seething. “Not about what’s going on in my own palace! Because why would I need to know that? No, of course not, Iwa-chan has everything under control.”

Iwaizumi’s eyes are rolling again. He follows a newly energized Oikawa up to the doors to the hall where the samurai await them. Oikawa grips the latch, inhales and exhales, and rips it open.

“Where is Ushiwaka-chan?”

Despite the arrangement, there are far more than three people awaiting Oikawa—each of them had wanted to have a member of their team along as a witness. Iwaizumi had not met Tanaka Saeko until this morning, but had recognized her immediately—she was known for her grin and the polesword strapped to her back (left outside for this meeting, per treaty customs). Her companion is a young woman with doe eyes who looks entirely too sweet to deal in these proceedings, Michimiya. Bokuto and his second, a sleepy-looking man who’d introduced himself as Akaashi, arrived wrapped in heavy grey furs. 

“Wakatoshi, that’s you!” This is Ushijima’s back-up,in Iwaizumi’s estimation a weird sort of guy with spiked reddish hair and a rubbery face. Tendou, he said. He waves on Ushijima, and the samurai’s imposing figure steps out from the room’s shadowy sidelines. It has been years since Iwaizumi last saw him, and he seems even bigger now, widened by the thickness of his winter clothes. His face is blank.

“Oikawa-sama,” he says simply. Oikawa saunters toward him, eyes narrowed.

“I didn’t think you’d ever come back here.” Iwaizumi’s jaw clenches. They have an important diplomatic mission to accomplish, and here’s Oikawa, aggravating an old wound.

“I did not plan on it. You made it necessary with your decree.”

“Right.” Oikawa seems to remember that this is what they gathered to talk about, and turns his attention briefly to the room’s other inhabitants, who are all looking shades of amused or puzzled. “You have concerns.” Iwaizumi checks to make sure the door is secure; this is not a conversation he wants overheard.

“Concerns is an understatement,” says Bokuto, stomping into the center of the room. Oikawa meets him there, letting himself be encircled by the samurai and their assistants. “You can’t just _do_ that.”

“There are people’s livelihoods to consider,” Akaashi subs in, with a hand on Bokuto’s arm. Oikawa lifts his chin.

“War is its own kind of economy. The emperor will provide for you if you join his army.”

“I chose to be a samurai so I would not have to live under the emperor’s will.” Oikawa flinches at the interjection of Ushijima’s voice.

“Yes, well, you can either deal with it for the time being, or see this country fall to invaders. And I guarantee they will not be as sympathetic as myself or the emperor.” A reaction circles the room. Akaashi and Tanaka exchange a look, and Tendou whistles. Iwaizumi hovers outside the circle, watching for sudden movements. “So,” Oikawa continues, brighter. “You join forces under my command—for a _few months_ —and we keep the invaders out of Japan.”

“Wow, that’s uncanny,” Tanaka barks, throwing her companion a grin. “It’s exactly like I said, he made that whole law just to draw us out.”

An idea seizes Bokuto violently enough that he jumps. “Yeah! We came here to talk about _dragons—_ even if we fight for you, there’s still the law—”

“Once we fight, the decree gets repealed.” Everyone turns curiously to the source of this chirpy comment: Ushijima’s Tendou. He’s smirking happily at them. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“Is that what you’re proposing?” Ushijima demands, turning back to Oikawa, and now they’re all looking at him again. He smiles with a bit of faux-sheepishness.

“You didn’t give me a chance to do the big reveal!”

“How cruel of me,” says Tendou, still grinning.

“Think of the decree as a temporary truce between yourselves and dragons,” Oikawa offers. “In order to defend, we put our internal conflicts on hold. It’s simple enough.”

Silence lags among the group, a lot of looks going around but no one saying anything. Iwaizumi suspects maybe they’d wanted more of a fight from Oikawa than they got. But he’s golden, as per usual. He moves through their line, toward the back of the room, humming idly.

“What do you think?” Tendou murmurs, as a sidebar, leaning into Ushijima. Ushijima himself is watching Oikawa move, dead-eyed. Then he glances at Tendou.

“Fine.”

Tendou smiles. “I agree.” He says somewhat louder, but still in the pretense of consulting with Ushijima, “And of course, if the decree doesn’t get repealed right away, it would be a very big problem for Oikawa-sama.”

Ushijima says, without a hint of hyperbole, “A civil war.”

“The decree will be repealed if you assist me properly,” Oikawa dismisses, not turning to face them.

Tendou catches Iwaizumi’s eye, and winks. _Bastard._

But that’s not the most disturbing thing that’s going on right now. The most disturbing thing is that Tanaka-san has stopped smiling.

She’s a bit scary when she grins, manic, unpredictable. This, her stony-faced expression as she stares down Oikawa’s back—it _is_ predictable, and the prognosis is bad.

“Where’d you get the idea?”

Oikawa spins around and regards her. “What do you mean?”

“To outlaw dragon killing. You had your motives for doing it, but it wasn’t your idea, was it?” Tanaka stalks closer to Oikawa, where he’s isolated himself on the opposite side of the room. Iwaizumi has a knife hidden on him, of course, despite hospitality rules, and he suspects Oikawa has taken the same precaution, but there’s no telling what Tanaka has hidden on her person either. He spots Michimiya watching her boss with her mouth open, as if she wants to protest.

“I don’t know what you mean, Tanaka-san.”

“You had visitors recently, right?”

No one misses the look that Oikawa gives Iwaizumi over Tanaka’s shoulder. Even fucking Ushijima doesn’t miss it—though if he had, his weirdo friend probably would’ve filled him in. Regret flashes in Tooru’s eyes, abolishing his moment of alarm. He’ll beat himself up for being so obvious later, Iwaizumi can feel it.

In a smooth recovery, Oikawa simpers, “You have a good ear for gossip!”

“I know those boys and I know what they can do.” The smile slides off Oikawa’s face, and Iwaizumi is frowning too. Tanaka Saeko, the Warrior Princess, knows Hinata and Kageyama? From _Karasuno?_ Michimiya-san stares at the ground. “I want to know what your plan is to deal with them. They’re just kids.”

“What are you talking about?” Ushijima asks, stepping forward. He glances at Bokuto and Akaashi and gets a shrug from the former.

Akaashi says, “Tanaka-san mentioned to us that there have been… reformers, suggesting dragons should be allied with. And ridden.”

 _Shit_.

Ushijima blinks, and looks at Tendou. “Then they’ll have to be taken care of.”

 _Shit. Shit._ This is not good. Iwaizumi breathes in—it’s getting harder for him not to interject. Oikawa’s expression has grown severe.

“I said they’re just kids,” Tanaka snaps, and Ushijima actually seems taken aback by her venom.

“They are a threat…”

“They can be talked down, I’ll do it myself.”

“Do they ride the dragons themselves…?” asks Tendou, looking between Oikawa and Tanaka with genuine curiosity. He reads the _unfortunately yes_ on both their faces. “That’s amazing! How impressive.” He whispers loudly to Ushijima, “They’ve definitely got to be stopped.”

“They’re just boys!” Michimiya shouts, rather suddenly, and clamps her hands over her mouth in surprise. It’s the first thing she’s said and everyone twists to stare at her.

“How do you have this knowledge of them?” Ushijima asks.

“Ha, no,” Tanaka snorts. “We’re not telling you anything about them. Not where they are or what they look like. Not even their names. You’re not going after them.”

“One of them is the former shogun’s son,” Oikawa offers quietly. When Tanaka glares at him, he shrugs. “He hid for almost fifteen years, they won’t find him with that information.” Ushijima grunts and turns away in response.

“It seems like the shogun should have a plan to deal with that kind of rebellion,” says Tendou, coy. The corners of Oikawa’s mouth twitch.

“I do. Don’t worry about them.” This last statement is directed at Tanaka and Michimiya. “As was mentioned, they’re children.” He strides in Iwaizumi’s direction, making to exit. “They need to grow up, eventually.”

* * *

“Akaashi, pass the whetstone?”

“It’s sharp enough.”

“It can never be sharp enough!”

Akaashi shuts his eyes for a moment, then tosses the stone to Bokuto. They’re camped out in a corner of the palace complex, awaiting a room assignment from one of the porters, though mentally Akaashi has begun to prepare for the possibility of sleeping outside. It’s been months since they had a roof over their heads, so it might be easier than trying to adjust to the luxury of a palace suite.

“Aha!” Bokuto catches the stone perfectly.

He watches Bokuto attack his axe, sparks flying. He seems like he missed his weapon while they were meeting with the shogun.

“That was tense.”

Bokuto makes a noise in agreement. “Everyone’s got real problems with each other.”

“I wasn’t aware Ushijima-san had a past with the shogun.”

“Oh, yes, I heard about that,” says Bokuto, brightening even further (if this were possible). “Apparently Ushijima came to the court to train as a possible successor to the old shogun, and Oikawa-sama—who was just Oikawa-san back then, you know—got beat by him in a couple of spars. And he was mad and privately swore to defeat Ushijima, but then good ol’ Ushiwaka decided he didn’t feel like listening to the emperor and went off to make a name for himself killing dragons instead.” Bokuto gives his axe a particularly firm scrape with the whetstone and sparks fly. “Boy, did that work out for him! And Oikawa-sama never got to best him, so he’s sore about it.”

Oikawa-sama does strike one as the type to hold a grudge. Akaashi smiles to himself. “That’s funny.”

“Isn’t it!”

He starts to work his way through one of their packs, hoping to find something constituting a meal. They’ve been known to eat only once a day, their stomachs are conditioned to take it, but the sun is going down and no one from the palace has offered them a meal.

“I feel weird,” Bokuto muses, “because we didn’t have an allegiance to anyone in there. I don’t know what to think of all of it.” He glances up from his work and gives Akaashi an expectant grin. “That’s why I have you, though, I guess.”

Akaashi purses his lips. They’re badly chapped, he can feel. The cold up north has been harsh on the skin. “What is it you’re wondering about?”

“Well… everything, I guess?” Setting his axe aside, Bokuto scoots forward, poking his face toward Akaashi’s. “What’s going to happen after the invasion’s over? Assuming we can keep the Mongols out, I mean.”

“I can’t predict the future, Bokuto-san.”

“The dragon riders that Tanaka and Oikawa-sama were talking about, though.” Akaashi’s hands stall. He withdraws them from the bag and sits back, meeting Bokuto’s anxious gaze. “Are they just kids, do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“Should we be afraid of them?”

Akaashi glances down. He and Bokuto have had much the same line of thought about this, it seems, even if Akaashi’s line went further. “The way Tanaka-san talks about them suggests to me that violence and war aren’t what they want.”

Bokuto sits back, his large round eyes twisting into a squint. “I thought they were revolutionaries. How’re they gonna…”

“I don’t know. It wouldn’t be an easy undertaking,” Akaashi agrees.

“I kind of want to meet them! Just to see what they’re like.” Bokuto grins and Akaashi mirrors him weakly. Akaashi pulls his gaze away to continue digging for their supper. Bokuto slots his chin against his fist. “I bet I’d look pretty cool riding a dragon. Anyone would.”

“Don’t get any ideas, please, Bokuto-san.”

“I just want to know how they do it. It seems impossible, doesn’t it?”

Akaashi looks up just in time to catch a faraway look flooding Bokuto’s eyes. _He’s imagining himself on a dragon._ “It does seem impossible,” says Akaashi, firm. “It could be a rumor or an exaggeration.” But if it were, the shogun wouldn’t take it so seriously. And Tanaka Saeko is no alarmist. He guesses correctly, however, that Bokuto won’t make this connection.

“Right,” his companion murmurs, disappointed.

“How many dragons have you encountered, Bokuto-san?”

“Oh—hundreds at least! Maybe a thousand.” The real answer, Akaashi knows, is somewhere in the high seventies. But they’ve been doing this for five years—that’s more than a dragon a month.

“And how many dragons seemed willing to let you ride them, Bokuto-san?”

“Uh,” says Bokuto. After a moment, his nose wrinkles. Akaashi quirks an eyebrow. “Okay! Okay, I won’t try to ride any dragons.” Akaashi nods. Groaning, Bokuto pops to his feet, dragging his axe along with him. “ _Agh_ , Akaashi, it would just be cool if it were possible.”

Akaashi doesn’t answer, even though he understands on some level. He isn’t a sadist and the constant chasing of tragedy gets to a person after time. There’s nothing else for them, without this, but it isn’t as if he hasn’t thought about retiring after a few more purses. Figuring out how to break the news to his partner is another issue entirely: Bokuto couldn’t stop fighting if he tried. And Akaashi wouldn’t want him to do this alone, he would… worry. So that has kept him going longer than anything. 

“Are you the Fukurodani people?” Bokuto wheels around to address the attendant who appears, unannounced apart from a quick bow. He has black hair parted right down the middle, and tired eyes.

“Yes! That’s us!”

“Come with me. Your room and your meal are waiting. You’ll have to share, as we are over capacity at the moment.”

Bokuto turns back and winks at Akaashi. “That won’t be a problem.” Akaashi’s eyes roll somewhere into the far back of his skull.

The attendant glances between the two of them, lip curling to say, _I didn’t need to know_. He starts marching away; they scramble to collect their gear and hurry after him; Bokuto’s stomach growls, and he guffaws loud enough to turn heads.

* * *

Hinata is planning something. That much seems clear to Kageyama, without reading his mind. His soutai really—well, he sucks at hiding shit.

He starts sneaking out of Kageyama’s in the early morning, and when Kageyama asks sleepily where he’s off to, the answer he gets is a nervous giggle and a kiss on the cheek. This bizarre behavior starts up a couple of weeks into their stay on Karasuno, and continues morning after morning, until Kageyama stops asking and accepts his cheek kiss with a grumble.

The last time Hinata kept a secret from him, it was obviously causing him pain. This time around, he’s as happy as ever when he comes back from wherever it is he’s going. Haizora indicates that Kinboshi has been playing the same evasive game with him, and Kageyama trusts Kinboshi to keep Hinata safe. So he decides he’s going to let it rest. Inevitably, Hinata will tell him what he’s up to. _I need your help_ , he’d said, and Kageyama is content to wait. For a little while, anyway. He tries to ignoring the ticking of the proverbial clock.

He has his own distractions, anyway, trying to assemble a plan for the possibility of Oikawa’s betrayal. It’s a challenge for him, who does his best work on the virtue of his instincts. He shares a couple meals with Suga-san and absorbs every piece of advice the older man has to offer. Suga begins every one of their meetings with a disclaimer that he’s no expert at these things, but his insight is clearer and savvier than Kageyama’s by leagues.

And he can answer other questions, too, ones that Kageyama doesn’t want to admit that he has, about other parts of his life. (On a related note, he finds out Suga has already inferred a jaw-dropping amount about his and Hinata’s relationship. This only confirms Kageyama’s awe at his wisdom.)

Hinata’s strange early morning ritual goes on for a week. The good news with this is, he’s finally stopped asking about Yachi; Kageyama privately met with her again and confirmed that she wasn’t yet ready to fly. The clock in his head ticked louder for a moment when she confessed this, but he kicked it in the gears and shut it up again.

One morning he wakes up in his bed alone. He’d slept through Hinata leaving and through the sunrise too. The daylight streams in through cracks in the walls. He might actually feel a little warm under his pile of blankets and hides, with the fire almost dead in the hearth. Spring can’t be too far off.

From outside, he hears a noise.

He hears several noises. A din, really, distant but enormous. He wonders how late he’s slept, pulling himself to sit up, and feels Haizora’s energy churn in his chest. Something’s definitely going on. The realization propels him out of bed.

Outside, he gets a better read on the sounds: squawking and roaring, which he recognizes as dragon noises, but he’s never heard so many together at once. There must be a dozen animals chiming in to this chorus, and at a distance it sounds like a flock of massive seagulls.

He follows the noise and, as it grows louder, he can make out the individual voices. A dozen was a conservative estimate: he counts at least fifteen. Walking through the village, he spies villagers huddled in doorways, gazing up at the sky. They look at him in awe of the fact that he doesn’t seem afraid. Haizora has met up with him and flies above his path, not having room to land but wanting to keep an eye on his human. As they get closer to the source—the only place near the village that could house that many dragons, the currently barren rice fields—he can see why his dragon is nervous. The sky over the fields swims with dots of color in every shape and size possible, squealing and flapping and puffing out bursts of smoke.

Dragons. More dragons than he’s ever seen in his life.

And he understands at once—through some combination of soutai intuition and getting to know a person very well—that this has to be Hinata’s doing. The thing they’re circling, most likely, is Hinata himself.

He breaks past the village’s edge and the rice fields and Ukai’s farmhouse lay spread out before him. Haizora hits the open ground near him and slinks in his direction, alert, because not all the dragons are in the sky overhead. No, a good ten of them have landed and he recognizes some of them from brief visits: Noya’s brown pygmy, Tanaka’s Mizuchi. The Watatsumi who tolerates only Sawamura. But that in and of itself isn’t what’s amazing.

What’s amazing is seeing each dragon interact with the human they like, peaceful. Friendly.

As he’d intuited, Hinata sits at the center of it all. Sitting on Kinboshi’s back, he shouts at the top of his lungs, above the dragons’ clamor: “Be gentle! But don’t be afraid! They picked you—you specially—because you’re the same!”

Kageyama’s mouth falls open, watching Kiyoko-san about twenty feet from him. She reaches out and strokes the nose of a Kiyohime—a long, thin black dragon with a forked tail that twitches. Ennoshita-san is here too, standing face-to-face with a stocky blue creature. They trade blinks. Yamaguchi is literally cuddling with the dragon he befriended, his arms around its neck, while calling to Tsukishima, “Tsukki, look how cute! He’s so sweet, Tsukki, come scratch his neck.” Tsukishima’s response is to stand stock still and say nothing. Notably there’s another dragon hanging out near the two of them, a sandy-colored one, who keeps a healthy distance but also won’t stop staring at Tsukishima’s back.

 _Everyone got out of bed before me_ , Kageyama thinks, looking around the field with huge eyes.

Hinata turns at the sound of Kageyama’s thought in his head. He has a smile on his face so wide he’s devoured by his joy, his excitement, and with the glow of the sun on his hair and the colors swirling above his head, he is beautiful. That’s the only way to describe it. Nothing could be more precise. “Kageyama!” he calls, waving wildly. Kinboshi bounds toward them and takes Hinata with her.

 _You’re amazing_. His capacity for normal speech has been rendered temporarily useless, so this whisper from the back of his mind is all he has to express what seizes him, squeezing his chest, knocking the air from his lungs. Hinata might be too distracted by the commotion to hear it.

“Kageyama!” Kinboshi leaps in front of him and extends her nose to Haizora, while Hinata dismounts in a frantic jumble, stumbling toward him. “Do you see this! Look, Kageyama—” His hands latch around the front of Kageyama’s clothes. “Everyone’s here, and they’re all—they—” He runs out of breath and when he sways dizzily, Kageyama catches him by the shoulders.

“What did you do?”

“I don’t—totally know,” Hinata breathes. They’re standing close together, closer than Kageyama would allow with people around, but Hinata is almost too overwhelmed to support himself and everyone is distracted by the dragons and Kageyama wants to be close to him in that moment. To touch him. “I remembered when I first met Kinchan and I didn’t know about Haizora, she did this thing in the middle of the night that called him to her. She sent up a bolt of light into the sky, during the sunrise.”

There’s a yelp from the other side of the field: Sugawara is being playfully pursed by a tiny dragon (essentially a big dog with wings) and he cries out when he trips and falls into a puddle. Sawamura’s laughter echoes off the houses on the edge of the village.

Hinata laughs too, and then continues his story, peering up into Kageyama’s face. “I thought maybe we could try calling a bunch of dragons here all at once, and that it might make it easier to show people if we were all together at the same time. And it took us like _eight tries_ , but it finally worked!” Hinata gestures to the cloud of dragons over their heads. “So I went and told everyone to come out—Noya-san and Asahi-san helped me—”

“You didn’t come get me,” Kageyama says, though he isn’t upset. Not in the slightest. Hinata gulps, his smile shrinking. He loosens one of his fists from Kageyama’s clothes.

“Well—I know, I didn’t. I… I wanted you to see it when it was working. Because I listened to what you said! About how it’s up to other people, and I have to help them see.” He looks up at Kageyama, hesitant. Kageyama wants to kiss him so badly he almost bites his tongue. “What do you think?”

“I think…”

“Kageyama-kun, good morning!”

He turns at this familiar voice, and there’s Yachi Hitoka. Sitting on the back of her dragon.

“ _Yachi-san_ —”

“I’m all right! We are not _flying_ ,” she announces, with a titter. “Momo and I have walked around the village twice now.” She reaches forward and pats her dragon’s neck. Momo makes a contented noise in answer. “Also, I wrote a letter to my mother! Everything is going super well!” Yachi says, not really _to_ him as much as _at_ him.

Kageyama catches Hinata’s eye and watches him puff out his chest, the picture of pride.

“Let’s—walk some more, Momo!” Yachi announces, trying very hard to sound authoritative. She points in a direction, and Momo trots off happily. Yachi squeaks and clings to her dragon’s neck.

“How?” Kageyama breathes. He was half convinced that Yachi had mentally refused, but was too timid to tell them as much. Hinata is back to beaming.

“I dunno, she saw everyone having fun meeting their dragons and came up to me and asked if I could help her get on Momo’s back. So I did. I don’t know if she’s really mastered the whole ‘steer with your mind’ thing yet, but she’s doing great.”

“Hinata, that’s…”

Hinata tugs hard on his haori. His tone verges on needy. “Tell me what you think of it. Please.”

Kageyama says the first thing that comes into his mind, which is, “I can’t.”

“ _Can’t?_ ” Hinata screeches, loud enough that Kageyama moves to put a hand over his mouth, which he fights off.

“I can’t describe it!” Catching on, Hinata relaxes. “I have… I’ll show you.” His heart pounds saying even that much. Kinboshi and Haizora are leaning on each other about five feet from them, watching the conversation. There’s no amount of vagueness that could make him comfortable.

“Show me?” Hinata repeats, obviously disappointed.

“Come to my house a little earlier tonight.”

“Why won’t you just tell me!”

 _Boke. What a boke._ Kageyama’s jaw clenches. “I’ll say whatever you want if you come over.”

Hinata pouts and fiddles with the edge of Kageyama’s obi while he considers. “Good things?”

“Yes.”

Hinata brightens instantly at the suggestion he’s going to be praised. “Okay. I’ll come over.” Kageyama exhales in relief. He isn’t sure what he would’ve done with himself if Hinata hadn’t agreed. “I need your help with one thing, though,” Hinata adds, biting his lip.

“What’s that?”

“Everyone’s having a good time with their dragons, so I don’t want to stress them out…” Kageyama can hear that Hinata is talking around the issue.

“What’s the problem?” he grunts. Hinata winces, and then tugs on his haori. He bends down and lets Hinata whisper in his ear.

“I don’t know how to get them to leave.”

* * *

“They’re never going to leave, are they?” Daichi sighs, staring out at their field full of sleeping dragons.

Suga can’t help laughing. “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think Hinata intended for this to happen.”

“It does _not_. Planting season starts in six weeks, we need these fields.”

“It’ll work out,” Suga promises, squeezing his arm. Today is their third day of dragon occupation, and he’s been witness to how the development has consumed Daichi. Suga has never seen him worry like this. He surrenders his brain to it. Which is a sign that he’s a conscientious leader and an all-around good man, but makes for a not-as-fun romantic and sexual partner, Suga has been finding. They watch the sun going down over the farm. The light glints off a dozen dragons, ribcages expanding and contracting all over the field like slow, scaly bubbles.

“I’m convinced that we can befriend them, fine. But it’s moot when we have no control over them.”

Suga taps his head against Daichi’s in commiseration. “I know.”

“I don’t know what Hinata means when he says _we_ have to move them. _He_ brought them here.”

“The only ones that stayed are the ones who spent time interacting with us, one-on-one,” Suga points out, _gently_. Daichi gives him a sideways look and sighs again.

“Right.”

“It makes a little sense…”

“I know.”

“And Hinata _has_ given us some guidance on how to communicate with the dragons.”

“He has.”

It’s Suga’s turn to look at Daichi, very expectant. Daichi clenches his fist, and releases. His voice is pure trained patience.

“What do you want me to say?”

“I want,” (Suga is not shy about explaining what it is he wants), “you to stop thinking that every step of progress we make with these dragons is a step toward Karasuno going to war.” Not wanting to hear this, Daichi starts to turn away. But Suga grabs his arm, demands his attention. “This is something our island _needs_.”

“But you do think we should go to war! I didn’t forget that, Suga.”

“I don’t want war—no one would _want_ war—I’m just not ruling out the option. That could be something our island needs, too.” His grip on Daichi’s arm loosens. They inch apart, and a moment of quiet passes as they take in the last of the sun. Cold begins to set in, but the chill gets a little less bitter every night. Whenever Suga notices this he’s reminded of something Kageyama will say over and over, when they talk: _It’s the time. I want us to have enough time._

“Yachi hasn’t flown yet,” Daichi observes, his voice losing some of its weight.

“But she _has_ ridden,” Suga counters, smiling. Daichi’s head falls back and Suga can’t help giggling.

“I can’t fight you and you’re using it against me.”

Suga tilts his head. He isn’t going to argue with that accusation. It’s working, even if Daichi sees through him. “I just think it’s funny that a man who’s spent his entire life working with horses could be afraid of riding anything.”

The sight of Daichi’s mouth falling open when he says this is beyond satisfying. And he has seen Daichi do _a lot_ of very satisfying things—they spent a long winter indoors and cold and bored. That expression ranks high on Suga’s list.

Then Daichi grimaces and turns away, shaking his head, guffawing. “Nice try. You’re ridiculous.”

“It didn’t work!”

“No, no, it didn’t work.”

“ _Ah_ ,” says Suga, but he’s laughing too. “I’m a failure.”

They’re making such a racket with their laughter, one of the dragons sleeping nearby stirs and lifts its head: the tiny one who has done nothing but harass Suga for the past few days.

“No. Not you—” Daichi has started laughing all over again. “Go back to sleep! Right now!” The little dragon blinks at him and wiggles out of the field. It looks like a pig grew wings and is absolutely awful.

“Suga, you’re the dragon expert, you’re supposed to know how to handle these things.”

“I know _how_ , I just don’t want to.” He grimaces as the creature flaps toward them and settles at his feet. A whole sky full of dragons, and the one that picked him was this small, persistent, cunning thing. Cunning he knows because the other day it had somehow managed to steal his shoe off his foot. He bends down and says into the dragon’s face, “ _Baka._ ” It puffs smoke at him and he starts coughing.

Daichi looks on, hands at his hips, disgustingly smug. “I think he likes his name.” Suga scoffs. He spots Daichi’s eyes wandering to the Watatsumi’s hulking, unconscious body. It’s double the size of the second biggest dragon in the field.

“Have you settled on a name?”

“What? Oh, no.” Daichi shakes his head. “I’m not naming him. Then I’ll get attached.”

“How stoic of you,” Suga deadpans. He loops his arm through Daichi’s and they head back to the apothecary. To Suga’s deep chagrin, Baka the pig-dragon follows them the whole way home.

* * *

Something weird happens to Kageyama a few days after Hinata’s miracle with the dragons, and the events that followed: Sawamura Daichi comes to visit him in his home.

What’s weird about it is that Sawamura has never come to visit him before, and also—everything that he says during the visit itself.

After Kageyama has welcomed him inside, he opens with, “I have some questions for you, if that’s all right, Kageyama-kun.”

It is all right with Kageyama-kun, as it so happens. Sawamura sits opposite him and taps his knee for a moment.

“You ride Haizora with a special kind of saddle, right?”

“Yes. It’s designed for a dragon’s body. It fits the wing joint better than a saddle designed for horses.”

Sawamura nods slowly. “So, to get a saddle for a Watatsumi, I’d probably have to have one designed special. A saddle for a draft horse or an ox or something, that wouldn’t fit.”

“I doubt it.”

“Hm,” says Sawamura, sitting back. “Hm. I would have to go bareback, otherwise?”

“I expect so, yes.”

“All right. Now, tell me more about steering.”

So Kageyama did—they talked for another twenty minutes about the intricacies of dragon flight, and then Sawamura wished him a good day and left.

Kageyama continues with the rest of the day’s chores, goes flying with Hinata, and visits the field where the wild dragons have taken up residence. He, Hinata, and Natsu have supper at Suga’s. Hinata escorts Natsu home and, smiling coyly, promises to meet him later. Kageyama walks back to the house by himself, and as he approaches the front door, finally has the thought, _I wonder if Sawamura-san is planning to fly his dragon_.

He doesn’t feel shaken by the realization. If their captain is the first person to take this leap, good. If he isn’t, they’ll figure something else out. Kageyama doesn’t take the time to dwell on it more than that; he goes inside to await his visit from Hinata.

* * *

It’s been six months, at least, since Hinata explored the hills around Karasuno. After everything that had happened here—meeting Kinchan, then Haizora, Kageyama discovering them, the storm and their first flights—it’s odd to return to it, and walk the narrows paths between snow-capped hills, the sun negating the remaining chill in the air. Like visiting a grave of the past, a memorial to the person he was a year ago, the youth he’d shrugged off in order to survive.

“Where are we going?” he calls to Kageyama’s back, slightly ahead of him on the path.

“Just to the lake. We’re almost there.”

“What are you going to show me?”

“You’ll see.”

Hinata stifles a yawn. He’d been roused from a tiny nap by Kageyama and dragged out here, still rubbing the grogginess from his eyes. Napping is an unfamiliar concept to him, but he kept getting up before the sun in order to work with Kinchan or check on the dragon pasture (as they’d taken to calling it), and running back and forth between his own house and Kageyama’s so Natsu doesn’t notice their sleeping arrangement. The missing hours of sleep had begun to catch up with him.

Kageyama climbs off the path, into the rocky crevice leading to their old alcove, and helps him down. Hinata can feel their dragons are awaiting them—and he’s right, Kinchan is on her sunning rock and looking very happy, and Haizora sits neatly looking out at the village below. The lake, with its crystal clear water in the summer, is frozen solid, though the ice looks wet under today’s sun. “Come here,” Kageyama says, steering him toward the overlook. Kinchan leaps down from her rock and comes to join the three of them. “Look.”

Hinata looks. “I’ve seen this view a bunch of times…” The fields, the farmhouse, the little brownish boxes and lines that make up the village. Dots moving along the ground. He yawns again.

Kageyama touches his arm lightly, catching his attention. “Wait a second. Keep looking.”

“What am I waiting for?”

“Wait a second and you’ll see.”

“ _Kageyama,_ ” he whines, but he resigns himself to scanning the village again.

There’s movement out the corner of his eye: a larger dot than the others, rising fast, over the pasture.

“What’s that?” His heart sinks. “Are the dragons flying away?”

Kageyama doesn’t answer. Hinata keeps watching the dot rise in the sky, trying to get a clearer picture of what’s going on. After a moment of squinting he can tell that’s the Watatsumi, for sure, the biggest one. But there’s something strange about the way it moves, something different about its shape…

_It can’t be._

**Yes.**

He looks up at Kageyama, who hangs on his reaction, riveted.

“Is that… Dai-san?”

Kageyama nods.

“He’s flying? On the Watatsumi?”

Kageyama nods again.

He makes a noise, which he’d thought would be a gasp but quickly turns into a sob. Daichi-san is flying, he’s _flying_ , not very high or very fast but—he’s doing it. Daichi-san, their leader. Weeks of frustration and confounded passion swell beyond their containers, and a dam in Hinata’s chest bursts.

Kinboshi squawks; she and Haizora launch themselves off the overlook, flocking to join the fray. So Hinata and Kageyama are flying with them, in a sense.

The image of the fields and the village goes blurry as his eyes fill with unshed tears. He squeezes them shut, and the water runs down his cheeks. Kageyama’s hands are on him, he stands behind him and strokes his arms. He almost says, _You have no idea what this means to me_ —but that’s wrong. Kageyama knows exactly what it means to him.

“Just now he told me he planned to,” Kageyama murmurs in his ear. “And he asked me to make sure you saw.”

“I see,” Hinata chokes. His shoulders are shaking.

“I think he was saying, he thought Tanaka-san and Noya-san might…”

And two more dots rise from the field. Hinata begins to laugh through his tears of joy, falling back into Kageyama’s chest. “I want to talk to them! I want—why did you bring me all way up here?” Kageyama wraps his arms around Hinata’s chest.

“I wanted you to feel tall.”

Hinata turns around and pulls him down into a kiss, his head tilting back at the movement of their mouths against one another. There’s an intensity there—it must be the moment—that reminds him of their nights and he’s pink when he pulls away. “I feel like the biggest person that ever lived. Like I could crush some stuff.”

“Don’t crush me.”

“Not _you_.” Hinata buries his face in Kageyama’s chest and laughs. His tears are dry, now. Once he’s caught his breath he looks up again. “We can do this, you know. I know you’ve been worrying about it.”

The smile lingers on Kageyama’s face, even as his mind wanders. “It’s not us that’s the problem.”

“Oikawa-san—”

“—probably isn’t trustworthy.” Hinata frowns, but Kageyama is shaking his head. “We don’t need to trust him. I trust you. He has no idea what we can do.”

Beaming again, Hinata steps away from him, and turns to the view again. The three dots are five now, and then six, and seven. The movement growing. “I think we’ve won half the war already. Don’t you?”

Kageyama smiles and takes his hand and kisses it, then pulls him into another embrace. They watch the dragons in the sky over their home, Hinata’s cheek against Kageyama’s arm. Behind them, the ice over the lake cracks, thawing: spring on the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the end of the chapter. It was super gay, wasn't it!
> 
> A few things:
> 
> \- there are no villains in GSAS aside from the Mongols. I just wanted to be clear, since Ushijima got introduced in this chapter, and he doesn't look _awesome_ in that scene. But this fic is really about unity so he will have his day. And Tendou too. Gotta have Tendou.
> 
> \- It's possible this fic will only have 12 chapters, but the last chapter, with the final battle, should be 20-30 thousand words, so double the length of a normal chapter. It will be a separate fic from the main story, but I'll make the two stories into a series on AO3.
> 
> \- It's finally time for me to write the SMUT SIDE STORY. Honestly it could get up to the length of a regular chapter because it's a lot of discovery~ stuff. I would like it to go up in June for GSAS's one-year anniversary, but I can't make promises.
> 
> \- I want to have GSAS done by the end of the summer. That said, I just found out I have to move again, and I'm starting a new job, so literally WHO KNOWS what my writing schedule will look like for the next few months. I'm still hoping, because the idea of spending a year and a half on a single piece of writing makes me groan.
> 
> That's all the stuff. Thanks for continuing to read this monster of a story.

**Author's Note:**

> i don't do set update times, but you can check my twitter (@bigspoonnoya), since i will usually post an estimated arrival time once i know it!


End file.
